⚡️ #Fun_Facts: Cucumber Tree

• 🥒 Cucumber Tree (Averrhoa bilimbi) - these curious fruits are incredibly sour and often used as a natural cleaning agent due to their high acidity.
• 🥒 In some cultures, bilimbi fruits are used to remove rust and stains from metal and clothes, making them a versatile household item beyond their culinary uses.
• 🥒 These fruits make a great lemonade too!

🛒 Shop rare fruit trees

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🌸 How to grow Orchid Trees in pots

🦋 Everyone loves beautiful Orchid trees with butterfly-like leaves and colorful orchid-like flowers. They are widely used in Southern landscapes. But what if you don't have a room in your garden for another tree? Or what if it gets too cold in winter for a tropical Orchid tree? You can grow it in a pot!

📝 This is how to n enjoy the stunning flowers and foliage of Bauhinia right on your patio or balcony:

• 💠 Choose the right variety. Some species suitable for containers:

B. galpinii, B. madagascariensis, B. monandra, B. alba (candida), B. acuminata, B. bidentata, B. blakeana, B. grandidieri and many others.
• 💠 Choose the right pot: Select a large, sturdy pot with good drainage holes. Bauhinia trees have a vigorous root system
• 💠 Use a well-draining potting mix. We recommend a professional soilless mix: Sunshine Abundance.
• 💠 Sunny location: Position the pot in a location that receives full sun to partial shade. Bauhinia plants thrive in warm, sunny conditions.
• 💠 Watering: Keep the soil slightly moist but not waterlogged. Water the plant when the top inch of soil feels dry to the touch.
• 💠 Fertilizing: For the most profuse flowering like in the video, feed the Bauhinia with liquid Sunshine Boosters Megaflor year around, it's safe with every watering.
• 💠 Pruning: Prune the plant to maintain its shape and encourage bushier growth.
• 💠 Winter Care: If you live in a region with cold winters, bring the pot indoors or to a sheltered location to protect the plant from frost.

📸 Bauhinia monandra - Napoleons Plume Orchid Tree, starts flowering when only 2 ft tall and grows well in containers.

📚 Earlier posts on Bauhinias: 1 2 3
Bauhinias: trees with Orchid Flowers and Butterfly Wings

🛒 Shop Orchid Trees

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🥑 Five most popular Avocado varieties

❓ "What is the best variety of Avocado?"
"Do you have the one with small black fruit and bumpy skin?"
"I have avocado with very large green fruit, what variety is it?"

These are frequently asked questions we get from our customers. This basic "classification" by black/green doesn't encompass all the wonderful qualities avocados have to offer. There are numerous hybrids in cultivation, and once you plant your first tree and taste the REAL fruit (not from the grocery store), you'll be eager to explore other varieties. While it's true that avocado fruit can vary in "butter" content, most superior varieties are equally delicious.

✅ We will guide you through Avocado varieties like we did with Mango varieties in earlier posts. First comes first -

🏆 The most popular Avocado varieties:

1. Brogdon - red-purple pear-shaped fruit, 7-15 oz. Skin is very thin, yellow buttery flesh. Fruit ripens in late summer-fall. Very cold hardy.
2. Hass - probably the most popular, but this tree prefers drier climate (Florida is humid, so we plant adaptable Florida Hass here). The fruit is dark-colored with a rough and bumpy skin, turns black when ripe.
3. Fuerte - a dwarf and a very cold hardy variety. Everybody's favorite "Condo Avocado": perfect for container culture and small yards. The mature tree in the ground is under 15 ft; 6-7 ft in containers.
4. Oro Negro - Oro Negro means "black gold" in Spanish, which is an incredibly appropriate name for this fruit. This Monroe hybrid (with big size fruit) is crossed with a Mexican type which would explain the black skin. The flesh is rich and buttery with a creamy texture.
5. Winter Mexican - one of most cold hardy varieties, Guatemalan x Mexican origin. Mature trees may withstand temperatures in the mid 20s. Oblong fruit, 12-18 oz, thick green skin. Very vigorous tree, bears heavily and regularly in December-January.


📚 Learn more: Avocado Variety Guide - check this out for interactive chart of Avocado varieties and sort them by flower type A or B, tree habit, fruit shape and quality, cold hardiness, origin, season and more!

🛒 Shop Avocado Trees

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❓ Why red flowers are so attractive? ❤️

💋 If red is your favorite color for flowers, this is your plant!👇

• ❤️ Bauhinia galpinii (punctata) - Pride of De Kaap or Nasturtium Bauhinia - belongs to Orchid trees that we mentioned earlier. But this one has very unusual color of flowers for Bauhinias: bright red or scarlet!
• ❤️ Native to South Africa, this is a woody, vining shrub that also can be trained into a small tree, reaching 6-10 ft in height.
• ❤️ As a all orchid trees it has deep green, bilobed leaves are resembling butterfly wings.
• ❤️ Blooms almost year around, from Summer through late Fall, with vibrant orange-red, resembling those of nasturtiums, coming in clusters. Well-known for its stunning floral display.
• ❤️ Hardy, low-maintenance, drought-tolerant once established. Prefers full sun but can tolerate partial shade.
• ❤️ Attracts butterflies and bees

🛒 Order Pride of De Kaap

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💻 "Like the sweet, deep colors of tropical flowers, the fruits of the earth inspire and enrich our lives." - Homer

📸 Bael Fruit, Mangosteen, Sapodilla, Rambutan, Mango, Maprang - from Thailand fruit market

🛒 Shop rare tropical fruit trees

#Edible_Forest #Quotes

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💻 "If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly our whole life would change." - Buddha

📸 Cananga fruticosa - Dwarf Ylang-Ylang, Chanel No 5 Tree

📚 Learn more: The Ylang-Ylang, Queen of the Perfume World, the Bearer of an Ideal Fragrance.

🛒Grow your own Ylang Ylang Tree

#Perfume_Plants #Quotes

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🍏 Why everyone wants the Sugar Apple?

Annona squamosa - Sugar apple - is considered by many as the most delicious tropical fruit. We introduced the Annona trees earlier.

• ✳️ Very small, compact tree, perfect for container or small yard, see photos from our Tropical Fruit Tree contest Winner.
• ✳️ Starts fruiting within 3 year from seed!
• ✳️ Easy to grow and undemanding
• ✳️ The fruit is sheer deliciousness, pulp resembling custard.

🛒 Order Sugar Apple

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🤔 What is the best showy shrub to plant under a shade tree?

• 💮 Tabernaemontana divaricata, also known as Pinwheel Jasmine or Crape Jasmine, is a true garden gem, blooming year-round to bring constant beauty to your outdoor space.
• 💮 This cute bush can be also shaped into a small tree.
• 💮 It looks beautiful beneath palms or trees.
• 💮 Blooms year-round with pretty, white, pinwheel-shaped flowers.
• 💮 Needs bright light for profuse blooming, but can tolerate shade conditions.
• 💮 Makes your garden look stunning all year around.

🛒Get Pinwheel Jasmine

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🌐 What is the most useful tree in the world?

• 💚 One of the most versatile and valuable trees known to humanity is Moringa oleifera, also called: Horseradish tree, Bridal veil, Horseradish tree, Drumstick Tree, Ben Oil Tree. It is indeed considered one of the most useful trees in the world. This reputation stems from its wide range of nutritional, medicinal, and practical applications.
• 💚 Moringa is a beautiful flowering tree with fragrant white flowers. It produces long green pods (looking like drumsticks!) and the seeds have been compared to a cross between peanuts and asparagus.
• 💚 Moringa leaves are rich in vitamins (A, B, C, E), minerals (calcium, potassium, iron), and amino acids, and have strong antioxidant properties. they are used in traditional medicine to treat inflammation. Moringa can help lower blood sugar and cholesterol levels.
• 💚 Almost every part of the tree is edible, including the leaves, pods, seeds, and flowers. Each part has its unique nutritional profile and culinary uses. Used in teas and cooking.
• 💚 The roots are used as a substitute for horseradish and the edible leaves make a highly nutritious vegetable. The roots have also been used in many folk remedies.
• 💚 Many Moringa products produced commercially: leaves, powder, oil. Moringa oil, extracted from the seeds, is used in cosmetics, skincare products. Seeds can be used to purify water, making it safer to drink.
• 💚 The plant can be used as a natural fertilizer and pesticide. Leaves are used as a nutritious feed for livestock.

📚 Learn more: How to grow a happy Moringa Tree

🛒 Plant your own Moringa Tree and save the Planet

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🏆 Tropical Fruit Tree Contest: enter to win the Jaboticaba Tree!

Post a picture of your own container grown tropical fruit tree and win this Jaboticaba!

🫐 Jaboticaba (Myrciaria cauliflora) is one of the most popular native fruit of Brazil and is used to produce their famous Jaboticaba Vine. Grape-like purple fruit with a thick skin and delicious melting pulp somewhat resembling Northern Black Currant in flavor. They grow right on the trunk! The tree is very slow growing, so large specimens are very expensive and hard to find.

💰$69.95 Value + FREE shipping 🚚
yes, delivered to your door absolutely FREE! Large, developed plant.

❗️ How to become a winner? It's very simple!
Post a picture of your own tropical fruit tree grown in CONTAINER in comments to this post and start receiving likes and hearts!
The entry that receives more likes (hearts, thumbs up, etc.) will be the winner!

👨�‍👧 Invite your friends and family to vote: to put their likes and hearts and support your work!

📋 RULES AND TERMS:

1. Must be our Channel Subscriber (click JOIN 👇)
2. Only 1 post per participant. The post should contain 1-3 pictures and a plant name.
3. A plant must be:

a) tropical fruit tree grown in a container. No temperate apples and no in-ground trees at this time.
b) must be a perennial tree or a shrub (annual garden veggies will have their chance in our future contests)
c) your own plant, not in a nursery or botanical garden
d) fruit on the plant is a plus (more likes), but not a must.
4. Delivery - USA addresses only. To receive the prize, the winner will be requested to provide shipping info.
5. Unclaimed prizes will be canceled after 2 weeks.
6. Deadline - July 1, 2024 at 3 pm, then we will count the hearts and pick the winner.
7. No purchase necessary to enter or win (see full rules PDF)

‼️ We need at least 20 participants to select the winner.

🏅 Good luck!

Post your entries in comments to this post👇

#Win #Food_Forest

🏵 JOIN TopTropicals and win!