Introducing a new member of Top Tropicals Team: Duck
Dobi. Full name is Adobe (Acrobat or Photoshop - he is
both active and colorful perrrson).
A customer brought us this little guy who was lost on
the street, probably left behind when his Mama took her
babies across the road. (Why did the Duck have to cross
the road after all?)
So Kristi adopted Dobi. He has been doing great for the
last couple of days, decided that Kristi is his Mom so
he is following her everywhere. TopTropicals cats are
excited but staying away knowing better: don't mess with
Mama Kristi!
Those of you who know little secrets how to raise little
ducklings please drop us a line! Dobi is our
first experience in raising something different than
plants or cats!
This one is the most wanted variety with
elongated petals that are sweetly scented. Compact and
slow growing shrub, it makes a great houseplant and
flowers freely throughout the year. The most profuse
flowering is from Spring to Summer.
Called pikake in Hawaii, Jasmine sambac is the plant
used to flavor the jasmine tea and making perfumes.
Perfect houseplant takes both sun or shade, it is a
beautiful fragrant everbloomer for your home and garden.
Belle of India is a slow grower, with pale green pointed
leaves and double flowers with elongated narrow petals.
Prefers filtered light for a better look of the leaves,
but will tolerate full sun. In fact the more sun the
more flowers you get.
Secrets of successful culture:
1) use only well-drained potting soil
2) keep the plant a little bit on a dry side so roots
don't get too wet. Water again when the soil gets
slightly dry.
3) Use micro-element mix - SUNSHINE Superfood works
the best. It will keep leaves nice and green and induce
more profuse flowering.
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YouTube.com/TopTropicals and get our latest video
news of what is fruiting and blooming!
Cheena is a natural hybrid between jackfruit and
chempedak. Comes true from seed.
This highly recommended variety has grown in TopTropicals
garden from a seedling of Cheena (Jackfruit x Chempedak)
that fruited within 3 years from planting. The fruit
(20-25" size) is probably the best we ever tasted! It is
super sweet, crunchy and has a rich, pleasant, excellent
flavor. It has very little latex which makes it easy to
handle when cutting up. The tree produces at the very base
of the trunk, so you can prune it as short as you want.
Our tree survived light frosts as well as 48 hours of 3ft
flooding, with no damage!
The tree has an open, low and spreading growth habit and
can be maintained at a height and spread of 8 ft with
annual pruning. It is very easy to grow and is not as cold
hardy as we thought for a Jackfruit x Chempedak types of
plants. The only two recommendations are - good fertilу
soil with a high content of compost and regular watering.
Cheena is a consistent producer. The fruit is up to 5 lbs,
long, narrow and uniform in size and shape. The skin is
green, with blunt spines that yellow and open slightly
upon maturity.
How to get Passion Vine to flower?
From Mark Hooten, the Garden Whiz
Q: Several
months ago, I purchased a passionflower vine, a red one with lots of
flowers. I ended up putting it in a much larger pot with a large trellis, using a
popularly advertised bagged potting soil recommended at a big box store. I have
given it a blue colored water-soluble fertilizer every couple of weeks as
recommended. However, while the vine seems very happy, growing faster than i
can keep winding it around the trellis, it has not flowered all summer. I there
something I am doing wrong?
A:
Passionvines as a group (and there are some 500 different kinds!) are sort-of
unusual among popularly grown ornamentals because they have "nitrogen issues". This
is because, even though unrelated, they are much like most legumes, as they
maintain a symbiotic relationship with certain beneficial soil bacteria which
allows them to gather atmospheric nitrogen and store it in their roots. When
they have an overabundance of nitrogen, they simply stop flowering and
produce rampant leafy growth while never flowering. They only flower well after a
period of healthy vine growth, because the plant had finally used up all of
its stored nitrogen.
Since you had both used a bagged potting soil which likely already
contained fertilizer with nitrogen added, as well as bi-monthly doses of a liquid
fertilizer which also contains nitrogen, it has been receiving so much
nitrogen it only knows to grow more vineage until the nitrogen is used up. If and
when that happens, it will again begin to flower. This rule applies of course
not only to flowering but also to fruiting varieties of Passiflora: the more
flowers, the more fruit you get!
So the answer is - for the time being, just stop giving it supplemental
fertilizer and it will start flowering for you sooner than later!
