Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

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Shady spots aren't a problem - they're an opportunity

Niki and Cash, the PeopleCats.garden rescued cats, lounging on a pink towel in front of a bathtub surrounded by tropical houseplants. The room is filled with lush green foliage, hanging vines, and potted plants, creating a peaceful indoor jungle.

Photo above: Niki and Cash, the Top Tropicals PeopleCats-in-residence, lounging in a lush indoor jungle

Most tropical gardens have at least one corner that gets morning light, filtered sun, or just bright shade - and that's exactly where Anthuriums thrive, along with many other shade-loving plants. That makes them ideal for spaces where other tropicals struggle.

Don't have a greenhouse? You don't need one. Anthuriums do beautifully on a shaded porch, in a screened lanai, or even indoors near a north or east-facing window. They're perfect for:

  • Bathrooms with natural light
  • Bright kitchens with indirect sun
  • Shaded entryways or under eaves
  • Hanging baskets under tree cover
  • Mounting on cork or wood in humid areas

Even a small space can feel like a tropical conservatory with the right plant - and Anthuriums bring that look without being demanding. They grow slowly, stay manageable, and don't need constant pruning or repotting.

Best of all, they reward consistency. Keep them warm, give them some humidity, water when the top inch feels dry, and they'll stay healthy for years. No drama - just quiet, lasting beauty. If you've never grown tropicals in the shade, this is where to start.

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Why tipping mango trees makes them fruiting machines (DIY Garden Tip) A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Why tipping mango trees makes them fruiting machines (DIY Garden Tip)

📱

🌳 Want more mangoes from your backyard tree?
In this step-by-step guide, Ed from Top Tropicals in Fort Myers, Florida, shows how to tip mango trees to boost branching, improve structure, and increase fruit production. Whether you're growing Valencia Pride, Orange Sherbet, or Glen mangoes - this method works!

✔️ You'll learn:

  • ▫️When and how to tip branches
  • ▫️ What tools to use (and how to clean them)
  • ▫️Real before-and-after results from trees in our Florida garden
  • ▫️Tips for shaping young trees for long-term success


🛒 Get your own mango trees

🌱 More garden tips and tropical fruit care

#Food_Forest #Mango #Mango_Rainbow

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Strawberry Guava for best Margaritas - the easiest fruit tree you'll ever grow! A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Strawberry Guava, Cattley Guava - Psidium littorale

🍓Strawberry Guava for best Margaritas - the easiest fruit tree you'll ever grow!
  • 🍓 If you're looking for a cold-hardy tropical fruit tree that thrives on neglect, you’ve found it: Strawberry Guava, or Cattley Guava (Psidium littorale). It's our favorite Guava at Top Tropicals!
  • 🍓 This fast-growing, evergreen small tree or dense bush doesn’t mind poor soil, limestone, or salt. It’s hardy to the low 20s F, drought-tolerant once established, and can even handle short-term flooding. Great as a hedge, windbreak, or container specimen, it also adds beauty year-round with glossy green leaves, peeling reddish bark, and soft red new growth.
  • 🍓 You’ll get round, tangy-sweet fruit from spring through fall - perfect for snacking, jams, or jellies, juices, and adding to all kinds of drinks, especially Margaritas and Mojitos! 🍸
  • 🍓 The red and yellow types are both tasty, with the yellow often a bit larger and sweeter. The sweetest and the most flavorful Cattley Guava variety is Hawaiian Gold - Psidium littorale var. Lucidum. This one is our favorite for eating out of hand!
  • 🍓 Cattley Guava is productive, low-maintenance, and ornamental - one of the easiest tropical fruit trees to grow in poor or alkaline soils.


🛒 Add a sweet guava hedge to your yard

📚 Learn more:

#Food_Forest #Guava

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What is the best pineapple to grow at home. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

White Jade Pineapple - Eleuthera

🍍What is the best pineapple to grow at home
  • 🍍 Pineapple plants (Ananas comosus) are easy to grow, virtually carefree plants. You you plant a few - you will always have the benefit of fresh and delicious fruit on the table, full of health benefits.
  • 🍍 White Jade Pineapple, also known as Eleuthera, is one of the most prized pineapple varieties you can grow at home - and for good reason. If you're only growing one pineapple, make it this one. And here is why:


✔️ Six reasons why you want to grow White Jade Pineapple
  • 🟡Super sweet and low acid: White Jade has tender white flesh that's ultra-sweet with almost no acidity. The flavor is smooth and rich, far better than anything you'll find in a grocery store.
  • 🟡Edible core: The core is soft, juicy, and 100% edible - no waste and no tough center.
  • 🟡Spineless leaves: Unlike most pineapples, White Jade has soft, spineless leaves, making it much easier and safer to handle.
  • 🟡Compact and container-friendly: It stays small, perfect for pots, patios, or tight garden spaces.
  • 🟡Backyard hero, not for shipping: This variety bruises easily, so it's rarely seen in stores - but perfect for home gardeners who want top-tier taste.
  • 🟡Tropical beauty + fast fruiting: With its blue-green foliage and striking fruit, it's ornamental as well as productive. Expect fruit in as little as 18-24 months with good care.

  • 🍍 Although often mistaken as a Hawaiian variety, White Jade actually originated in Eleuthera, Bahamas. It thrives in warm climates and rewards gardeners with a sweet, low-acid treat unlike any commercial pineapple. It is grown in Hawaii now, especially by backyard gardeners and small farms, because it does so well there.
  • 🍍 Make sure to feed your pineapple plants what they crave - sunshine and nutrients! Boost their growth with - SUNSHINE Ananas - Pineapple and Bromeliad Booster. This special formula gives your plants the energy they need to thrive and produce tons of sweet, juicy fruit just for you!


🛒 Plant the pineapple that grocery stores can’t sell

📚 Learn more:

#Food_Forest #Container_Garden #Discover
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🍈 Morinda citrifolia - Noni: A Plant with Purpose

Young woman with a potted Noni tree, close-up of Noni fruit growing on the branch, and a ripe Noni fruit with its distinct bumpy skin.

What are the benefits of growing a Noni tree?

Noni isn't just ornamental - it earns its place. This small tropical tree is packed with potential, from fruiting fast to delivering real, time-tested benefits.

  • Begins fruiting within a year
  • Flowers and fruits nearly non-stop if grown in proper conditions
  • Grows well in containers, indoors or out
  • Used to support immunity, joints, digestion, and more
  • Leaves and fruit are both used in traditional remedies

How to Grow Noni Tree

In Zone 10 and warmer, Noni grows beautifully outdoors in full to part sun. It thrives in poor soil, tolerates salt, and bounces back from drought. Just keep it warm and lightly fertilized for year-round flowering and fruiting.

For indoor growers, Noni adapts well to containers. Place it near a bright window or under grow lights. It can tolerate lower light, though fruiting may slow. Keep soil moist but not soggy. Leaves may drop if it gets too cold or too dry - warmth is key. In deep shade, the foliage becomes lush, dark, and ornamental.

Pro tip: Start with a 3 gal or larger plant for faster fruit production.

Shop Noni Trees

How to Make Fresh Noni Juice

A glass with noni juice next to a ripe Noni fruit with its distinct bumpy skin and noni leaves

Got fruit on your Noni tree? Here's how to turn it into something powerful.

Step-by-Step Guide:

  • Wash the ripe fruit thoroughly
  • Cut into small chunks
  • Blend until smooth
  • Strain (optional) through mesh or cheesecloth
  • Add apple or blueberry juice to soften the flavor
  • Store in clean glass jars and refrigerate

Why bother growing Noni?

Fresh Noni juice supports:

  • Joint and bone strength
  • Energy and endurance
  • Immune balance and metabolism
  • Healthy gums and blood pressure regulation
  • Weight management and nutrient absorption
This isn't just juice. It's tradition in a glass - and it came from your own plant.

Grow your own noni juice

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💖 What if your next houseplant could make medicine?

Meet Noni, Morinda citrifolia, a tropical tree with deep roots in Polynesian healing. For over 2000 years, it's been used to support health from the inside out: pain relief, immune strength, digestion, skin, joints, energy, and more. And now, you can grow it yourself.

This isn't some fussy rainforest diva. Noni is one of the easiest fruit trees to grow, especially in a pot. It flowers and fruits year-round, even in a 3-gallon container. Indoors, it thrives in bright light and tolerates dry air and skipped waterings. Outdoors in Zone 10+, it's practically unstoppable - fast, forgiving, and constantly flowering and fruiting.

It's also a conversation piece. The glossy leaves can grow over a foot long. The fruit looks like something from another planet! And every part of the plant - fruit, leaves, seeds, even roots - has been used in traditional medicine.

Grow it for health. Grow it for curiosity. Grow it because your ficus never made you juice.

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Cocoplum: secret fruit in your hedge. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Bahamas Cocoplum - Chrysobalanus icaco

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Five best fruit trees to plant in Summer. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

James Coconuts and Bob introducing Five best fruit trees

🌳 Five best fruit trees to plant in Summer

☀️ Summer might be scorching, but it’s actually a great time to plant fruit trees that love the heat. If you've got sunshine and a little space, these five tropical picks will reward you with fresh, homegrown fruit - some you’ll never find in a store!

1. Mango - the King of all fruit, a must have in every garden. Fiberlress varieties only! You can't buy those in the store.

2. Avocado - a must have super-fruit in everyone's diet, grow your own!

3.🐲 Dragon fruit - heat tolerant easy plant with low water needs, sweet fruit-bearing cactus

4. 🍉 Guava - by far the most flavorful tropical fruit, great for Summer drinks

5. 🍐 Black Sapote - fast growing, heat- and flood-tolerant, fruit tastes like chocolate pudding

📚 Learn more from previous posts:

🛒 Explore the finest rare tropical fruit trees

#Food_Forest #Discover

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Color that lasts year-round: Ti plant: bold color, easy care. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Cordyline fruticosa - Hawaiian Ti plant

🌈 Color that lasts year-round: Ti plant: bold color, easy care
  • 🌿 Looking to add some serious color to your garden without adding a lot of work?

    • Cordyline fruticosa, also known as the Hawaiian Ti plant comes as beautiful colorful leaves in so many shades and varieties!
  • 🌿 Shades of deep burgundy, hot pink, bright green, even chocolate - and everything in between. The glossy, sword-shaped leaves look like something out of a vacation photo.
  • 🌿 And the best part? It's super easygoing. Ti plants grow well in sun or shade, in the ground or in pots, and need very little water.
  • 🌿 Perfect for borders, containers, or as a tropical accent - Ti Leaf brings instant island vibes to your space.


🛒 Ti time! Click to grow

#Container_Garden #Hedges_with_benefits #Shade_Garden

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Five best fragrant plants for summer plantings. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Brunfelsia isola - Lavender Lady of the Night

☀️ Five best fragrant plants for summer plantings
  • ☀️ Summer heat? No problem. These fragrant plants thrive in it - and will make your garden smell like vacation every day.
  • ☀️ Brunfelsia - Lady of the Night - releases its sweet scent after sunset, filling warm evenings with a dreamy, tropical perfume.
  • ☀️ Gardenia - Queen of Scent - classic creamy blooms with a rich, unmistakable fragrance that perfumes the air even in peak summer.
  • ☀️ Jasminum sambac - the most popular and the most fragrant Jasmine for both indoor or outdoor culture. Varieties: Arabian Nights, Belle of India, Mangalore Malli, Grand Duke, Grand Duke Supreme, Gundu Malli, Maid of Orleans, Mali Chat, Mysore Mulli, Little Duke Supreme - Baby Duke.
  • ☀️ Nyctanthes arbor-tristis - Parijat. Small tree or shrub from India with highly perfumed flowers, one of the most desired fragrant plants. Mythology says the plant came to earth with God Krishna, shedding flowers like tears before dawn.
  • ☀️ Plumeria - tropical icon known for its heavenly scent and stunning flowers - blooms all summer and keeps your garden smelling like vacation!


🛒 Shop fragrant plants

🎥 Brunfelsia isola, or Lavender Lady of the Night, are a "marble" twist of cream and purple, changing hue unpredictably. They are deliciously fragrant at night.

📚More fragrant garden ideas:
▫️ Six most desired perfume plants

#Perfume_Plants #Discover

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