Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

🕺 Meet Onika'scats: Fred

🐈📸 Meet Onika's cats from TopTropicals PeopleCats.Garden:
This is Fred - the most inquisitive and smartest of all her tuxedo cats! Fred is super smart. Very tough on the outside, but sweeter than a mango on the inside.

#PeopleCats

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🌸 The secret New Deal Franklin Roosevelt never told you about

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  🌸 Schlumbergera x New Dealis not your regular Christmas cactus. Big blooms, long history. This heirloom flowers from Thanksgiving to Easter and descends from a plant first sold on the very day Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected.

This variety actually vanished from the trade for decades. Its first known appearance was at a rare plant sale at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on November 8, 1932 - the exact day Franklin Roosevelt won the presidency and launched the famous New Deal. The name stuck, and so did the legend!
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  🌸 What makes New Deal so special? The blooms are huge - about an inch larger than standard holiday cactus flowers - and come in brilliant violet-pink and white. And the timing is even better. It sends up a full flush around Thanksgiving and Christmas, then wakes up again with a second wave closer to Easter. That’s why some people call it a Thanksgiving cactus, others call it a Christmas cactus, and many insist it’s an Easter cactus. The truth? It’s all three.
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  🌸 Despite its pedigree, New Deal is surprisingly easy to grow. It thrives in normal houseplant conditions, stays compact, and rewards even casual care with heavy, reliable blooming.
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  🌸 The plants available today come from true descendant cuttings of an original 1932 specimen that is still alive. This makes New Deal one of the rarest, most authentic holiday cactus cultivars you can own - a living slice of history and one of the most generous bloomers of the entire holiday season.

🛒 Get the New Deal: the Thanksgiving-to-Easter bloomer

📚 Learn more:

• ✦ More about Schlumbergera from Plant Encyclopedia
• ✦ What is the most popular Christmas plant?
• ✦ An heirloom holiday cactus lost for decades: Thanksgiving-to-Easter bloomer

#Container_Garden #Shade_Garden #Nature_Wonders

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🍴 Katuk coconut soup: quick-n-fun exotic recipes

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  🟢Simmer chopped Katuk leaves (Sauropus androgynus, Tropical Asparagus) in coconut milk with garlic and salt.
• 🟢Rich, green, and packed with nutrients.

🛒 Add Katuk Superfood to your Food Forest

📚 Learn more:

• ▫️Sauropus androgynus in Plant Encyclopedia
• ▫️The secret Brain Food growing in my backyard (and it tastes like green peas!)
• ▫️Katuk egg stir-fry: Quick-n-Fun exotic recipes
• ▫️Health benefits of Katuk: a Superfood for your mind and body

#Food_Forest #Recipes

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🔥 When will the war end?
Sound on 🎤

Find out exactly when the war will end - at the end of this video!

🐈📸 Starring:
Orange Cat Zhyrdyay (Cherkassy, Ukraine)
'Paper' Tiger Cat (intruder from occupied Luhansk, trying to take Zhyrdyay's land)

🎥 Filmed by:Vasiliy Sarana, Wildlife Explorer and Film Director, Ukraine.
🔛 Subscribe to Vasiliy's YouTube Channel: Wildlife Adventures Ukraine

#PeopleCats

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💥 What blooms for you in December: Calliandra tweedii "With Love"

• 💥 December just started and so did Calliandra tweedii "With Love" - right by TopTropicals Bfarm office. This plant always knows how to kick off winter around here. First week of December… boom, the red tassels pop open, and then it keeps going all the way through winter and into spring.
• 💥 Calliandras are famous for being spectacular winter bloomers, but in our garden they seem to ignore the calendar and flower pretty much year-round. "With Love" grows as a many-stemmed dense shrub, kind of like a small fountain. Branches rise right from the ground, covered in tiny leaflets that gently fold at night or when you touch them.
• 💥 And the flowers - that’s the whole show! Fine, feathery, glowing-red tassels that look almost electric in the morning sun. The bush by the office is covered in them right now - bright scarlet puffs against fresh green foliage. Most calliandras lean more pink, but this one stays true red. It makes a fantastic hedge, a bold specimen shrub, and honestly a great bonsai because of the branching structure.
• 💥 If you want something cheerful, easy, and blooming exactly when most gardens look quiet, With Love delivers every single year.

🛒 Plant Calliandra tweedii "With Love" - Red Tassel Flower
Shop Calliandras - Powderpuffs

📚 Learn more:

• ✦ Calliandra tweedii in Plant Encyclopedia
• ✦ Red Tassel Flower blooms through March

#Hedges_with_benefits #Butterfly_Plants

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🏳️ Greetings from outside of Tropics: Masyanya

🐈📸 Cat Masyanya, a friend of PeopleCats.Garden.
Masyanya lives in a snowy village by Vladimir city, Russia.
Her message to us: "You guys are lucky to live in the Tropics in Peace, and have TopTropicals by your side who can send you tropical plants! And here... some day the Spring will come, and the Happiness will overcome. Be grateful for what you got - Happy Holidays! Love and Peace" 💕 🕊️

#PeopleCats

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🎉Floridians, mark your calendar: December 13, 2025 - Holiday Plant Market!

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  🔴 Welcome to the Holiday Plant Market, proudly hosted by the #PeopleCats of TopTropicals.


King is on gate duty (checking every car, as usual).
Paisley is rearranging plants for the tenth time this morning because he wants them perfect.
Snitch is already relaxing in a chair, supervising with a cup of iced tea.
Persephone is under the tables, greeting guests from the Underworld.
Sushi and Loki are grooming - getting ready for the guided tours.
Together they invite you to stroll the gardens, snack on a donut, enjoy holiday music, and pick out something tropical and beautiful to take home.
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  🔴 Why you should come


It is December in Florida - warm breeze, sunshine, and perfect planting weather. While the rest of the country is scraping frost off windshields, you're choosing which banana tree to take home. Come enjoy a colorful Saturday surrounded by plants, music, snacks, and friendly #PeopleCats. This is your holiday escape, your plant-hunting adventure, and your chance to bring home something amazing before the season ends.
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  🔴 What makes this event special


We bring out the biggest, rarest, most impressive plants we grew all summer.
Trees with developed branches, vines ready to take off, fragrant blooms that stop people mid-walk.
Everything looks better by December in Florida, and this is the day we put it all on display!
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  🔴 Holiday extras

- 30% OFF online prices
- FREE plant with purchase
- $5-10 specials
- Mini donuts and holiday treats
- Cold drinks, iced tea, citrus-infused water
- Tropical Christmas music playing all day
- Cat-guided tours from our PeopleCats (they know the garden better than we do) - Subject to Purrrson's schedule/availability
- Exciting Raffle prizes
- Fruit tasting table (subject to enough ripe fruit in the morning!)

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  📱 Event discounts and specials valid at both locations:

✦ Ft Myers Garden Center: 13890 Orange River, Ft Myers, FL
✦ Sebring Farm: 9100 McRoy Rd, Sebring, FL

🎁 Learn more about this Event, Holiday deals and extras

📱 Watch this bird-eye video from the past events:

🍴 Avocado miso toast-up: quick-n-fun exotic recipes

• 🟢Mash ripe Avocado with a tiny pinch of miso.
• 🟢Spread on warm toast and hit it with crushed black pepper.

🛒 Plant several varieties and always have Avocado in season

📚 Learn more:

• · Avocado Variety Guide
• · Posts about #Avocado
• · Avocado tree (Persea americana) in Plant Encyclopedia

#Food_Forest #Recipes #Avocado

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😨 What's in the pantry today?

"Finders keepers" - Publius Syrus (1st century BC writer)

🐈📸 Cat Bob found a sweet spot in a food pantry, watching that no one else takes it at TopTropicals PeopleCats.Garden

#PeopleCats

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