The wild fruit with a secret: health benefits of rare Spanish Tamarind - the exotic fruit you've never heard of. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.
The wild fruit with a secret: health benefits of rare Spanish Tamarind - the exotic fruit youve never heard of
🍊The wild fruit with a secret: health benefits of rare Spanish Tamarind - the exotic fruit you've never heard of
Looking for a new exotic fruit to love? Meet Vangueria infausta - Spanish Tamarind, also called Wild Medlar. Native to Southern Africa, this little-known gem grows on a small tree and produces round, golden-brown fruit with a sweet-tart flavor. You can eat them fresh, dried, or even turn them into a tropical jam or homemade fruit beer!
But it's not just tasty - it's super healthy. The fruit is packed with vitamin C, fiber, and minerals like iron and magnesium. Locals use it as natural medicine: the leaves and bark are brewed into teas for colds, fevers, and stomachaches. The roots are even used for coughs and snakebites.
Secret bonus? Its bark and leaves make natural dyes in yellow, green, and purple!
The Wild Medlar is easy to grow in warm climates (Zones 9-11) and can handle poor soil and dry weather. In cooler zones, just grow it in a pot and bring it in for winter. Give it full sun, some water, and it'll reward you with 20-40 fruits per season.
Dance into prosperity with Ram Ruay Adenium. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.
Dance into prosperity with Ram Ruay Adenium
Adenium Ram Ruay
🌸 Dance into prosperity with Ram Ruay Adenium
🌸 Adenium Ram Ruay - the name of this Thai Adenium can be interpreted as follows:
Ram (รำ) – means "dance" or "to dance," especially in the context of traditional Thai dance. Ruay (รวย) – means "wealth," "prosperity," or "abundance."
So the name Ram Ruay means "Dance of Prosperity" or "Dancing Fortune"!
What is the best tasting and most beautiful tropical cherry? Grumichama. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.
What is the best tasting and most beautiful tropical cherry? Grumichama
Grumichama - Eugenia brasiliensis
🍒 What is the best tasting and most beautiful tropical cherry? Grumichama!
🍒 If you are hunting for a fruit tree that does it all - gorgeous looks, unbelievable flavor, and nonstop productivity - meet Grumichama (Eugenia brasiliensis), the tropical cherry you'll fall in love with!
🍒 Grumichamais a compact cherry tree that steals the show. In spring, the tree transforms into a cloud of delicate white starburst flowers, like fireworks frozen in bloom. The blossoms are pure white with long, golden-tipped stamens, giving them a soft, lacy glow. The entire tree hums with life - bees and butterflies swarm to sip the nectar, turning your garden into a pollinator paradise.
🍒 And then comes the fruit! The cherries are dark purple-black, glossy, and almost too juicy to believe. One bite and you're hooked- sweet, smooth, with hints of cherry, grape, and plum. It's our favorite tropical cherry at Top Tropicals, hands down. So good, you'll eat one - then a handful - and then realize you've picked half the tree. They're that good!
🍒 Grumichama tree is a dream come true for beginners. It tolerates heat, partial shade, even salt spray. It's drought-tough, yet grateful for a little water with a crazy fruit yield - up to 500 fruits per tree. And it's perfect container fruit, so even small-space gardeners in colder zones can grow it. Cold hardy to the upper 20s!
🍒 Even when not fruiting, Grumichama is a stunning ornamental. Shiny evergreen leaves, showy blooms, and a neat, upright form make it a standout in your landscape.
🍒 And the fruit? Packed with vitamin C, fiber, and even a bit of plant protein, it's a sweet treat that’s also healthy. Perfect fresh off the tree, or turned into jam or jelly - if you can stop eating them long enough.
🍒 Start your food forest with Grumichama. It's easy. It's beautiful. And it's the most addictive fruit!
Black Tacca Lily. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.
Black Tacca Lily
Tacca Lily - Black Bat Flower, Devil Flower
A flying bat with whiskers. Tacca. It's rare. It's weird.
Tacca Lily - also known as the Black Bat Flower or Devil Flower, looks like something brewed up in a witch's greenhouse.
The flower isn't really a single flower - it's a full-on performance. Giant black-maroon "wings" stretch out like a bat in flight, while long, drooping filaments dangle like eerie whiskers or jungle jewelry. Some can reach over a foot long!
Those weird, wild filaments? They're not just for show - they are believed to help mimic the look of decaying matter to attract pollinators like flies. Creepy? Yes. Clever? Absolutely.
The plant blooms best when it feels pampered - think filtered light, tropical vibes, and spa-level humidity. A smart indoor exotic for a bathroom with a skylight!
It grows from a rhizome, and while the Black Tacca (T. chantrieri) is prized for its spooky looks, its Green cousin (T. leontopetaloides) is actually used to make a type of tropical arrowroot starch.
Some gardeners say it takes a while to bloom (maybe a few months) - but once it does, it becomes the crown jewel of the greenhouse. People will ask if it's real. You'll say, "Yes, and it lives here!"
Tacca comes in different species/colors: Black, White, Green:
What Mango fruits year around? Xosi Tu Quy - Four Seasons crisp Vietnamese mango perfect green or ripe. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.
What Mango fruits year around? Xosi Tu Quy - Four Seasons crisp Vietnamese mango perfect green or ripe
Xosi Tu Quy, Jin Huang - Four Seasons crisp Vietnamese mango
What Mango fruits year around? Xosi Tu Quy - Four Seasons crisp Vietnamese mango perfect green or ripe. Mango Rainbow🌈
Xosi Tu Quy, Four‑Seasons, or Jin Huang, is a Vietnamese variety celebrated for its ability to flower and fruit multiple times annually. It produces medium-to-large, bright yellow, firm, fiber‑free fruit with a small seed and crisp, mildly sweet flesh. Ideal for green-eating and pickling, it also ripens to a gentle sweetness with floral-honey nuance. The tree grows vigorously with a dense canopy and shows good resistance to anthracnose - perfect for warm, humid, tropical or subtropical yards. In Florida it typically fruits May-August, possibly longer in ideal conditions.