Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

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Stop and smell the sweetness. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Stop and smell the sweetness

Stop and smell the sweetness
😘 Stop and smell the sweetness

"A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms - and invites you to stop and smell its sweetness." - Zen Shin

🐈📸 Meet Onika's cats: this is iTembie - read her touching story from PeopleCats.Garden

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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What is the best Red Dragon fruit and what does it taste like? A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

What is the best Red Dragon fruit and what does it taste like?

Red Dragon Fruit - Halley's Comet

🔴 What is the best Red Dragon fruit and what does it taste like?
  • 🍉 Red dragon fruit might look similar on the outside, but the flavors are all over the place once you start trying different varieties. Halley's Comet is one of the reds that actually tastes rich - sweet, juicy, and full of that deep berry-like flavor people hope for in dragon fruit. It ripens fast, so you have to catch it at the right moment or it turns soft overnight.
  • 🍉 Red-fleshed types are also loaded with antioxidants, which is why the juice stains everything it touches. If you like bold flavor, check out other good reds below. These are some of the top varieties growers recommend for sweeter, stronger taste:

  • 🔴🔴 Red skin, red flesh(Hylocereus costaricensis) - Sweeter, juicier, and more intense in flavor. The deep red juice can stain, but it’s loaded with antioxidants.

    • Varieties: American Beauty, Bloody Mary, Eureka Red, Costa Rican Sunset, Mac Edwin, Halley's Comet, Makisupa, Mega Red, Physical Graffiti, Sweet Red
  • 🔴🟣 Red flesh, purple/magenta flesh(Hylocereus x costaricensis) - Hybrids, usually between red and white varieties.

Varieties: Cosmic Charlie, Edgar's Baby, Natural Mystic, Physical Graffiti, Purple Haze, Tricia, Voodoo Child, Zamorano

🛒 Bring a red dragon to your garden

📚 Learn more:
📱 How to grow Dragon Fruit
📱 How to get your own Dragon Fruit plantation

#Food_Forest #How_to #Dragon_Fruit

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Betel leaf bites: quick-n-fun exotic recipes. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Betel leaf bites: quick-n-fun exotic recipes

Betel leaf bites recipe

Betel leaf bites recipe

Piper betle - Betel leaf

Piper betle - Betel leaf

🍴 Betel leaf bites: quick-n-fun exotic recipes
  • 🟢Spread coconut, peanuts, lime bits, and palm sugar on a Piper betle leaf.
  • 🟢Fold and chew for a refreshing, spicy-sweet treat.


🛒 Plant your own Betel Leaf

📚 Learn more:

#Food_Forest #Recipes

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Give thanks for a little. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Give thanks for a little

Cat Jacques checking refrigerator

Cat Jacques checking refrigerator

Cat Sushi is looking for sushi in refrigerator

Cat Sushi is looking for sushi in refrigerator

Cat Bob checking refrigerator

Cat Bob checking refrigerator

🍴 Give thanks for a little

"Give thanks for a little, and you will find a lot." - African (Hausa) proverb

🍗 Happy Thanksgiving!

🐈📸 Cats Jacques, Sushi and Bob are looking for sushi in TopTropicals refrigerator at PeopleCats.Garden.

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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It opens overnight, wakes up just for Thanksgiving! A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

It opens overnight, wakes up just for Thanksgiving!

Gloxinia sylvatica - Bolivian Sunset

🔥 It opens overnight, wakes up just for Thanksgiving!
  • 🔥 Gloxinia sylvatica - Bolivian Sunset, is one of those plants that waits for the perfect cool morning and then explodes in red.
  • 🔥 The blooms really do show up overnight - bright fire-red, glowing even in deep shade. and blooms all through fall and winter. In Summer it sleeps, then flowers come back in Fall.
  • 🔥 It's an easy, water-loving, shade-loving plant that makes a showy holiday ground cover. It stays low, spreads from rhizomes. And if you like sharing plants, this one gives you plenty of starts to pass around during the holidays. Perfect timing, perfect color, perfect seasonal surprise!


🛒 Plant Bolivian Sunset - the Winter Wonder that turns on like a light switch!

📚 Learn more:
Low growing show stopper blooms like a winter fire

#Butterfly_Plants #Container_Garden #Shade_Garden

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An heirloom holiday cactus lost for decades: Thanksgiving-to-Easter bloomer. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

An heirloom holiday cactus lost for decades: Thanksgiving-to-Easter bloomer

Schlumbergera x New Deal

Schlumbergera x New Deal

🌸 An heirloom holiday cactus lost for decades: Thanksgiving-to-Easter bloomer
  • 🌸 Schlumbergera x New Deal is not your regular Christmas cactus. This is a true heirloom, a variety that vanished from the trade for decades and originally appeared at a rare plant sale at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden back on November 8, 1932 - the same day F.D.R. won the presidency and launched the famous New Deal. The name stuck, and so did the plant’s reputation!
  • 🌸 What makes New Deal special? First, the flowers. They are big - about an inch larger than standard holiday cactus blooms – and show up in brilliant violet-pink and white. Second, this variety blooms twice a year, which is why people call it a Thanksgiving-to-Easter cactus. It usually opens a full flush around Thanksgiving and Christmas, then surprises you with a second wave toward spring.
  • 🌸 Despite its pedigree, New Deal is easy to grow. It handles normal houseplant conditions, stays compact, and rewards even casual care with heavy blooming.
  • 🌸 The plants available today come from 3rd-generation cuttings of an original specimen that's still alive, making this one of the rarest and most authentic holiday cactus cultivars you can add to your collection. A living piece of history - and one of the most generous bloomers for the holiday season!


🛒 Get your own vintage Christmas cactus with a history

#Container_Garden #Shade_Garden #Nature_Wonders

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🎃 Thanksgiving Weekend Deal

Schlumbergera x New Deal - Thanksgiving, Christmas Orchid Cactus, plant covered in cascading bright pink flowers indoors.

Photo above: A long-blooming holiday classic, Schlumbergera New Deal, an heirloom Thanksgiving-to-Christmas cactus with cascades of oversized pink flowers. Blooms from Thanksgiving through Easter!

As our way of saying thank you for growing with us all year long, here is your exclusive holiday code. Use it for 15% off any order over $100 (excluding shipping and handling):

THANKS2025

Ends November 30th, 2025 (Sunday) at midnight.
Min order $100 (exculuding S/H).
One use per customer.
Cannot be combined with other discounts.
Cannot be applied to previous orders.

Check out our specials below - hand-picked by our horticulturist for size, beauty, and vigor! These are the biggest, fullest plants you'll see all year! Take advantage of this Holiday discount code and get them now at their best and fullest point!

🛒 Shop Tropical plants

Gloxinia sylvatica - Bolivian Sunset, close-up of a flowering plant with many bright red tubular blooms and dark green leaves.

Gloxinia sylvatica - Bolivian Sunset. A perfect fall-winter standout: it bursts with glowing blooms and makes a great holiday gift as a flowering start.

Large blooming Gardenia nitida plant with many white star-shaped flowers and glossy green leaves growing in a container

Gardenia nitida, Shooting Star: a rare African gardenia with sweet fragrance and star-shaped blooms that appear several times a year. Soft diamond-shaped leaves. This true collectors gem blooms in dramatic waves, filling the air with a strong, sweet scent.

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Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Top Tropicals!

Smokey the tuxedo cat holding a Thanksgiving sign while Sunshine the ginger tabby smiles beside him on a potting table.

Smokey: "We made a list of everything we are thankful for this year."
Sunshine: "I helped. Mostly by napping next to it."
Smokey: "And that is exactly why sunshine naps are on the list."

Smokey and Sunshine wanted to share a short Gardener Thanksgiving Message about what they are thankful for this year:

"We are thankful for warm laps during cold mornings.
Thankful for every gardener who stopped to scratch our heads between loading carts.
Thankful for the smell of fresh soil, new plants, and boxes that make perfect cat forts.
Thankful for mango season (even though humans never let us eat the fruit).
Thankful for sunshine naps on potting tables and shade naps under benches.
Thankful for all the tiny moments when gardens and people slow down together.
And thankful that we get to share this tropical adventure with you."

From the whole Top Tropicals Team and PeopleCats, we wish you a warm, peaceful, plant-filled Thanksgiving 🙏 ♥️

🛒 Shop Tropical plants

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Eat dessert first. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Eat dessert first

Cat Cash

Cat Cash

Eat dessert first

"Life is short. Eat dessert first." - Ernestine Ulmer

🐈📸 Cat Cash is tasting Barbados Cherry with attitude, at TopTropicals PeopleCats.Garden

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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Do this if you want to smell a dizzy perfume! A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Do this if you want to smell a dizzy perfume!

Night blooming jasmine, Cestrum nocturnum

✨ Do this if you want to smell a dizzy perfume!
  • ⭐️ Night blooming jasmine, Cestrum nocturnum, is one of those plants people get obsessed with once they smell it. The fragrance doesn’t play around - the tiny flowers open after dark and fill the whole yard with a sweet, powerful, almost dizzy perfume. You want some serious fragrance? Do this: get yourself a night blooming jasmine!
  • ⭐️ The crazy part? It’s in the Nightshade family, related to tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers. But it acts nothing like a veggie. This shrub grows fast, stays dense, and turns into a nighttime perfume machine during warm months.
  • ⭐️ Flowers are pale yellow to white and stay insanely fragrant until sunrise. In India and across South Asia they use them for weddings, ceremonies, and perfumery because the scent is that intense.
  • ⭐️ If you want the full effect, plant it near a window, a porch, or a walkway. Anywhere you pass by at night. One or two plants are enough to make your whole garden smell like romance after dark!


🛒 Make your yard smell like romance!

📚 Learn more:
📱 How to grow Night Blooming jasmine

#Perfume_Plants #Hedges_with_benefits

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