Garden Blog - Top Tropicals
The solution to all of problems
"Here's to alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems." - Homer Simpson
🐈📸 Bob the Cat looking for troubles and solutions at TopTropicals PeopleCats.Garden
#PeopleCats #Quotes
🟢 Join 👉 TopTropicals
This flower opens in a few seconds!
Phymosia umbellata - Cranberry Mallow Malva Aparasolada
"The earth laughs in flowers." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
🎥 Phymosia umbellata - Cranberry Mallow Malva Aparasolada - one of the most impressive Malva (Hibiscus) shrubs
🛒 Explore Hibiscus species
📚 Learn more:
- ▫️Cotton Candy Hibiscus
- ▫️Why this Hibiscus is changing color
- ▫️How to make your Hibiscus plants thrive and bloom
- ▫️How to get rid of pests on Hibiscus
#Nature_Wonders #Hedges_with_benefits #Quotes
🟢 Join 👉 TopTropicals
Carambola sparkle salad: quick and fun exotic
Carambola sparkle salad
- 🟡Slice starfruit into star shapes and toss with cucumber, mint, and a splash of lime.
- 🟡A crunchy, refreshing mix that looks as good as it tastes.
🛒 Explore Carambola varieties
#Food_Forest #Recipes
🟢 Join 👉 TopTropicals
Date:
🎉 Celebrate Fall Plant Market with 20% Off Online!
Visitors to our Fall Plant Market can enjoy a special walk-in discounts and deals at the nursery. But we want our online friends to celebrate too! Shop from home and take 20% off everything when you spend $125 or more (excluding S/H, can't be combined with any other offer. Valid for online purchase only). Just use code at checkout. Hurry — offer ends Sunday, 09-07-2025.
FALL2025
Date:
📅 Do not miss: September 6 - Fall Plant Market!
Saturday, September 6, 2025: 9 am - 4 pm
Fall is just around the corner, but Florida is still full of sunshine and
growing energy!
It’s one of the best times to plant - cooler days are coming, but
there are still months of warmth ahead for your garden to thrive. Our
nursery is bursting with big, healthy plants that grew all summer long -
loaded with blooms, fruit, and lush foliage, ready to shine in your
yard.
Come stroll the gardens with our PeopleCats,
enjoy the most beautiful season for planting, and let us help you find the
perfect picks for your space. Bring your friends and family for a weekend of
fun, color, and fresh ideas - this is your moment to plant, grow, and
enjoy!
Event Highlights:
30% OFF online prices
FREE plant with any purchase (including Guava)
Gift bags for first 25 customers with $50+ order
Special deals on select plants
Exciting raffle prizes
Green Magic fertilizer FREE samples
The LAST PERFORMANCE of the Famous Hand Pan Lady! (She is moving from
Florida)
See her previous performance at Top Tropicals - here
and here.
Event discounts valid at both locations:
Ft
Myers Garden Center: 13890 Orange River, Ft Myers, FL
Sebring
B-Farm: 9100 McRoy Rd, Sebring, FL
Do not pray for an easy life
Cash the Cat at TopTropicals
"Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one." - Bruce Lee
🐈📸 Cash the Cat at TopTropicals PeopleCats.Garden
#PeopleCats #Quotes
🟢 Join 👉 TopTropicals
Why gardeners say this is the best Mulberry ever
Illinois Everbearing Mulberry - Morus alba x rubra
- 🍇 Illinois Everbearing Mulberry (Morus alba x rubra) is a recent discovery we’re excited to share. It may be the best variety we’ve grown, and if you only plant one mulberry, this should be the one.
- 🍇 Very hardy and adaptable. Illinois everbearing is a cross between the white and red mulberry, and it seems to have inherited the best qualities of both. It is suitable for USDA zones from 5 to 10! It survives -20F and even colder, yet it also thrives in heat and poor soils. That wide adaptability makes it one of the most dependable fruiting mulberries for many regions.
- 🍇 Quick shade, quick fruit, long season. The tree grows fast, about 3 to 5 feet a year, turning into a 20 to 30 ft shade tree in just a few years. It has a long, everbearing harvest season and early start: some people have even had fruit the first year after planting. The berries are about an inch and a half long, shaped like stretched out blackberries. They ripen steadily through summer, not all at once, which is why it is called everbearing. That means you can walk out and pick handfuls from July right into September.
- 🍇Delicious and abundant. The flavor is what really sets it apart. Sweet, juicy, with a little tang, many gardeners say it is the best tasting mulberry they have had. You can eat them fresh, dry them, or cook them down for jam. Birds love them too, so you may end up sharing. But there will be enough for all: it produces abundant yields of 15 to 25 pounds per tree by year two or three.
- 🍇 Easy to grow. It is a low maintenance tree, generally free of pests and diseases. Once established it is easygoing.
- 🍇 Universal and long-lived. Plant it for the fruit, plant it for the shade, or plant it for the wildlife it draws in. Its foliage is also attractive, with deeply carved, oak-like leaves that add ornamental value to the tree. Illinois everbearing is not just a productive tree, it becomes part of the rhythm of your summer garden. While most mulberries live a few decades, some Illinois Everbearing trees may endure much longer with good care.
🛒 Pick your Mulberry tree
📚 Learn more:
- ▫️How to have fruit year around: Dwarf Everbearing Mulberry
- ▫️Mulberry season!
- ▫️The best Mulberry varieties
- ▫️Top 10 fast-fruiting trees: #7. Mulberry
- ▫️How Mulberry fruit helps with diabetes
📱 Dwarf Everbearing Mulberry
#Food_Forest
🟢 Join 👉 TopTropicals
How to grow ground orchids
📱
📚Learn more:
- 🟡 Why is it called Nun Orchid
- 🟡 When Bamboo blooms with orchid flowers
- 🟡 Ground orchids: all-summer colors
- 🟡 Why do we love Ground Orchids
- 🟡 Epidendrum radicans - Orange Reed Ground Orchid, Sunrise
- 🟡 Terrestrial orchids
- 🟡 What orchids can be grown in the ground?
#Shade_Garden #Container_Garden #How_to
🟢 Join 👉 TopTropicals
To one person you may be the world
"To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world." - Dr. Seuss
🐈📸 Cats Timo and Matilda are brother and sister and best buddies at TopTropicals PeopleCats.Garden
#PeopleCats #Quotes
🟢 Join 👉 TopTropicals
Ballistic buttons shooting from the mattress like popcorn!
Dorstenia bahiensis - Mattress Button Plant
- 🔘Dorstenia bahiensis - Mattress Button Plant is a shade-loving oddball. Its glossy green leaves are topped with flat, wavy discs that really do look like old-fashioned upholstery buttons scattered across the garden floor. But these button heads aren't just for show - on their surface are tiny clusters of male and female blooms, all crammed together like a mini city of flowers.
- 🔘The real fun begins when those button heads ripen. Instead of quietly dropping seeds like most plants, Dorstenia goes full popcorn mode. With a little "pop!" the seeds are catapulted yards away, just like squeezing a watermelon seed between your fingers. One moment it's calm, the next it's launching its offspring across the yard!
- 🔘At only 6-12 inches tall, this little understory dweller doesn't take up much space, but it makes up for it with personality. Content in the shade, thriving in any soil, and ready to surprise you with its seed-shooting tricks. Grow it in a pot, use it as quirky groundcover, or just keep it around as a party fun.
🛒 Get your own Mattress Button Plant
📚 Learn more:
How many buttons in this ballistic mattress?
#Shade_Garden #Container_Garden #Nature_Wonders
🟢 Join 👉 TopTropicals