Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

✨ 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 many flowers on Night Blooming Jasmine?
• ✦ This magical fragrance follows you all over the garden at night
• ✦ Why everybody wants this plant

📱 How to grow Night Blooming jasmine

#Perfume_Plants #Hedges_with_benefits

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🍴 Ackee skillet scramble: quick-n-fun exotic recipes

• 🔴Boil ripe, naturally opened Ackee pieces for a few minutes until tender, then drain well.
• 🔴Saute chopped onion and a few tomato bits in a little oil until soft.
• 🔴Add cooked salted cod (or skip it) and gently fold in the cooked ackee.
• 🔴Warm it through on low heat and serve as a soft, creamy tropical scramble.

🛒 Plant Ackee tree and harvest fruit you can't get from the store!

📚 Learn more:

• ▫️ Ackee breakfast scramble with hot peppers
• ▫️ Banned Jamaican fruit: why you never see fresh Akee in U.S. stores
• ▫️ Akee taste of deliciousness
• ▫️ Are these new Christmas ornaments? Ackee monster fruit!
• ▫️ What is number one tree-grown vegetable? Akee - Jamaican fruit that is actually a vegetable growing on a tree

📱 What is Akee - Jamaica's National Fruit - and how to grow it
📱 How to cook perfect Akee?

#Food_Forest #Recipes

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😏 Watch this Penguin Cat watching penguins

"Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects." - Will Rogers

🐈📸 Matilda, the Penguin-shaped Cat is learning new things at TopTropicals PeopleCats.Garden

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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What Avocado is better - Type A or Type B?

Avocados are divided into two types based on how their flowers open - Type A and Type B. This has nothing to do with how the fruit looks, only with how the flowers work.

TYPE A:
The flowers open as female in the morning of the first day, then close. On the afternoon of the second day, they reopen as male.

The most popular type A avocado varieties:
Bernecker, Black Prince, Catalina, Choquette, Day, Donnie (Doni), Fantastic, Florida Hass (Haas), Lila (Opal), Loretta, Lula, Mexicola, Mexicola Grande, Red Russell, Reed, Russell, Simmonds, Ulala (Oh La La, Super Hass) , Waldin, Wurtz (Dual Type, A&B).

TYPE B:
The flowers open as female in the afternoon of the first day, then close. The next morning, they reopen as male.

The most popular type B avocado varieties:
Anise, Bacon, Beta, Booth 8, Brazos Belle (Wilma), Brogdon (Brogden), Buck, Ettinger, Fuerte, Hall, Hardee Red, Hialeah Red, Joey, Kampong (Sushi), Marcus Pumpkin, Maria Black, Miguel, Monroe, Nishikawa, Oro Negro, Pollock, Poncho (Pancho), Thomson Red, Tonnage, Winter Mexican, Wurtz (Dual Type, A&B), Yamagata.

• 🟢 Each tree can make its own fruit (it’s self-fertile), but if you plant both types together, they will help each other make more fruit. The flowers of A and B types open at opposite times, so bees can carry pollen between them more easily. This means better pollination and a bigger harvest.
• 🟢 For home gardeners, one tree is enough to get fruit, but having both A and B types nearby will give you a larger crop. If you grow avocados in pots, it’s a good idea to have at least one of each type.

✍️ In short:
One tree = some fruit
Two trees (A + B) = lots more fruit!

✔ ️Check out Avocado Variety Guide interactive chart. Sort them by flower type A or B, tree habit, fruit shape and quality, cold hardiness, origin, season and more!

🛒  Explore Avocado varieties

📖Our Book: Avocado Variety Guide, Snack or Guacamole?
Hard copy
PDF File Download

📚Learn more:
How Avocado trees flower and set fruit
Avocado Variety Guide
#Avocado #Food_Forest #How_to

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💐 The Tropical Cat

"Man is what he believes." - Anton Chekhov

🐈📸 Google the Cat with tropical flowers he grows at TopTropicals PeopleCats.Garden

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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One fruit on this tray always stumps people

• 🍉 Another day, another fruit tray from the garden! Even at the end of November, something is always ripening here in Florida. This tray turned out especially fun - a mix of familiar fruits and a couple that always make people guess twice!
• 🍉 Today’s harvest includes: sweet Persimmons, Star fruit, a few different dragon fruits: yellow Palora and white with red skin - this is Seoul Kitchen. There's also Cocoplum, which makes great drinks. And - ta-da! - the little showstopper of the day: Curly Locks Orchid Cactus fruit (Epiphyllum guatemalense Monstrosa). It looks wild, but it's edible and tastes like a tiny dragon fruit.
• 🍉 If you live in Florida or any warm climate, growing your own fruit is one of the best gifts you can give yourself. Tropical fruit trees are generous plants - they don’t wait for a season, they give you something month after month. Some days it’s a handful, some days it’s a whole tray, but there’s always a fresh treat waiting. Once you start growing your own food, you realize how easy and rewarding it is to fill your garden with flavor.
• 🍉 Every tray has a new surprise. Come along and see what the garden gives us next!

🛒 Explore rare tropical fruit

📚 Learn more:

• ▫️Can you name all the fruits on this tray?
• ▫️Weird cactus looks like pasta with Dragon Fruit
• ▫️Cocoplum: secret fruit in your hedge
• ▫️Pitaya vs Dragon fruit - what is the difference and how to grow it?
• ▫️How soon will Persimmon tree fruit?
• ▫️10 best fruit trees to grow in Florida and Southern landscapes
• ▫️Top 10 fast-fruiting trees

#Food_Forest #Discover

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🍴 Cinnamon leaf tea: quick-n-fun exotic recipes

• 🟢Steep fresh cinnamon leaves in hot water with a slice of ginger.
• 🟢Fragrant, soothing, and naturally sweet!

🛒 Plant Cinnamon Tree - the spice that is always with you

📚 Learn more:

• ▫️How to Grow Your Own Cinnamon Tree – Spice and Health Right by the Kitchen
• ▫️How to increase libido
• ▫️What is Cinnamon made of?

#Food_Forest #Recipes

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😏 Watch what this cat tells you at the end

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference." - Winston Churchill

🐈📸 Scooby - the Cat with the Attitude at TopTropicals PeopleCats.Garden

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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❄️ How to overwinter the tropical Bird of Paradise

• Strelitzia reginae - the Bird of Paradise is a resilient tropical that can adapt to indoor conditions through winter if given bright light, moderate warmth, and careful watering. With a few preventive steps and timely protection, plants will stay healthy and reward you with vigorous new growth and blooms when warmth returns.
• When should you move plants indoors?

Move Bird of Paradise indoors before nighttime temperatures consistently drop below 55F. Extended exposure to cooler air can slow growth and stress the plant. In central and south Florida, this often means late fall; in cooler zones, aim for early to mid-October. Once temperatures fall below 50F, leaf damage and root stress can occur.
• What is the right location for a Bird of Paradise in winter, and why?

Place the plant in the brightest spot available - ideally near a south- or west-facing window. Strelitzia reginae is light-hungry even during dormancy. Low light leads to leaf yellowing, weak petioles, and slowed recovery in spring. If natural light is limited, supplement with a full-spectrum grow light set 12-18 inches above the foliage for 12-14 hours daily. Maintain room temperatures between 65F and 75F.
• Do you need to do anything before moving them indoors?

Inspect the plant for pests such as mealybugs, scale, and spider mites, which often hide in leaf bases. Rinse the leaves and petioles thoroughly and check the soil surface for insects or snails. Prune off any damaged or aging leaves. If the plant has spent the summer in heavy rain, allow the soil to dry slightly before bringing it indoors to avoid fungus gnats or root issues.
• Do plants need watering or feeding during winter?

Reduce watering. Indoors, the Bird of Paradise grows slowly in lower light, and excess moisture can cause root rot. Let the top 1-2 inches of soil dry before watering again. Avoid fertilizing during winter rest; resume feeding in spring when new growth appears. If the air indoors is very dry, increase humidity with a pebble tray or humidifier rather than overwatering.
• Can you overwinter Birds of Paradise outdoors?

In frost-free areas of Florida (USDA zones 10-11), they can remain outdoors year-round. In zone 9, occasional cold snaps require protection. Mature clumps tolerate brief dips to about 30°F, but foliage burns easily at low temperatures.
• What tips do you have for protecting plants outdoors?

When frost threatens, water the soil thoroughly a day before - moist soil retains heat better than dry. Cover the plant overnight with frost cloth or breathable fabric, not plastic, to trap ground warmth. For large clumps, wrap the base with mulch or straw to protect rhizomes. After cold events, remove damaged leaves but wait until spring to cut deeply, as live tissue below may still recover.

📚 Learn more:
How to grow Bird of Paradise

🛒 Plant Bird of Paradise

#How_to #Container_Garden

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