Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

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Do not pray for an easy life. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Do not pray for an easy life

Cash the Cat at TopTropicals

Cash the Cat at TopTropicals

🐱 Do not pray for an easy life

"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

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Why gardeners say this is the best Mulberry ever. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Why gardeners say this is the best Mulberry ever

Illinois Everbearing Mulberry - Morus alba x rubra

💗 Why gardeners say this is the best Mulberry ever
  • 🍇 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:

📱 Dwarf Everbearing Mulberry

#Food_Forest

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How to grow ground orchids. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

How to grow ground orchids

💮 How to grow ground orchids

📱

📚Learn more:

#Shade_Garden #Container_Garden #How_to

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To one person you may be the world. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

To one person you may be the world

To one person you may be the world
🐱 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

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Ballistic buttons shooting from the mattress like popcorn! A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Ballistic buttons shooting from the mattress like popcorn!

Dorstenia bahiensis - Mattress Button Plant

🚀 Ballistic buttons shooting from the mattress like popcorn!
  • 🔘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

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Lalot beef wraps: Quick-n-Fun exotic recipes. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Lalot beef wraps: Quick-n-Fun exotic recipes

Lalot beef wraps

Lalot beef wraps

🍴 Lalot beef wraps: Quick-n-Fun exotic recipes
  • 🔵Mix ground beef with garlic, shallots, and fish sauce.
  • 🔵Wrap spoonfuls in Lalot leaves (Piper sarmentosum - Vietnamese pepper)
  • 🔵Pan-sear or grill, until the leaves are crisp
  • 🔵Serve with rice or noodles


🛒 Grow Lalot Papper for tasty, peppery recipes

#Food_Forest #Recipes

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Politeness. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Politeness

Cat Wesley

Cat Wesley

❤️ Politeness

"Nothing costs so little and is valued so highly as politeness." - Miguel de Cervantes

🐈📸 In loving memory of Cat Wesley - a lover boy at TopTropicals PeopleCats.Garden 

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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What's inside the Devils Tongue that smells like trouble? A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Whats inside the Devils Tongue that smells like trouble?

Amorphophallus paeoniifolius (campanulatus) - Voodoo lily

👅 What's inside the Devils Tongue that smells like trouble?
  • 👹 Amorphophallus plants - the Voodoo Lilies - are also known as Devil's tongue, Snake Palm, or Elephant Foot Yam, Corpse flower. This plant has a reputation as wicked as its name!
  • 👹 Amorphophallus is the largest flower in the world and one of the most exotic bizarre flowers. Amorphophallus titanum is known for its massive size, its flower can reach heights of over 10 feet and blooms only once every few years.
  • 👹 Why Corpse flower? Because of the smell that the flower omits, but for only a few hours - just long enough to summon its pollinators, the flies 🐱

    • After that, the air clears, leaving only the memory of the spectacle.
  • 👹 The titan of the group, Amorphophallus titanum, can soar over 10 feet tall. But its cousin in this video, Amorphophallus paeoniifolius, is just as fascinating. It rises from a giant underground corm (which is actually edible in Asia), then sends up either one surreal flower or one umbrella-like leaf as big as a small tree.
  • 👹 Season after season, it alternates between leaf and bloom, keeping its mysterious cycle alive. Hardy enough to rest through winter dormancy, it can even be grown in a pot at home.


🎥 Amorphophallus paeoniifolius (campanulatus) - Voodoo lily

🛒 Discover more of Amorphophallus - rare and enigmatic plants

📚 Learn more:

#Nature_Wonders #Shade_Garden #Container_Garden
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Who was your grandpa? A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Who was your grandpa?

Who was your grandpa? Who was your grandpa?
👍 Who was your grandpa?

Macaron: "My grandpa was a Snow Leopard!"
Jim II: "My grandpa was a Teddy Bear..."

🐈📸 Cats Macaron and Jim II bragging about their family history at TopTropicals PeopleCats.Garden 

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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Zero Sugar fruit: forget lemonade - new perfect summer drink discovered! A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Zero Sugar fruit: forget lemonade - new perfect summer drink discovered!

Costa Rican Guava, Cas Guava - Psidium friedrichsthalianum

Zero Sugar fruit: forget lemonade - new perfect summer drink discovered!
  • 🍋 Costa Rican Guava, or Cas Guava (Psidium friedrichsthalianum) is the boldest fruit you can grow for refreshing drinks. Its flavor is sharp, tangy, and unforgettable - perfect for anyone who loves acidic fruit. Cas Guava has sugar at all, unless you decide to add some.
  • 🍋 The trees are super prolific - even young ones fruit heavily, and we make gallons of juice at Top Tropicals.
  • 🍋 The best part? You can freeze the fruit or boil it into a concentrate with a bit of sugar. That drink lasts in the fridge for months without going bad, thanks to Cas Guava’s natural antibacterial punch.
  • 🍋 Cas Guava juice is Costa Rica’s traditional Agua de Cas - tart, refreshing, and perfect for summer heat. And if you save enough, you’ll still be sipping it through the winter.


♨️ Agua de Cas Quick Recipe
We boiled this fruit and the drink lasted for months!
  • ▫️Boil halved fruits in water with sugar to taste
  • ▫️Simmer 5-10 minutes, let sit, then mash the softened fruit to release all the flavor
  • ▫️Strain through a colander, bottle, and refrigerate - just dilute with water when serving


✔️ Why choose Cas Guava?
  • • Packed with vitamin C - four times more than lemons - for a powerful immune boost.
  • • Rich in antioxidants to combat stress and inflammation.
  • • Hardy and low-maintenance, thriving in poor soils and resisting pests.


🛒 Grow your own Cas Guava

📚 Learn more:

#Food_Forest #Recipes #Guava

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