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Index > Garden Blog

Date:

Why is it called Cry Baby Tree?

Erythrina flower - Cry Baby Tree

Erythrina flower - Cry Baby Tree

Erythrina seeds - Cry Baby Tree

Erythrina seeds - Cry Baby Tree

Erythrina - Cry Baby Tree

Erythrina - Cry Baby Tree

⚡️ #Fun_Facts: Why is it called Cry Baby Tree?

👶 Erythrina (Cry Baby Tree): When the wind blows through its leaves, it produces a rustling sound that resembles a baby crying, hence its name. The plant has spectacular red flowers and beautiful red seeds (see also earlier post).

🛒 Shop Erythrinas

#Trees

🏵 TopTropicals

Date:

Mango Rainbow tasting table: whats the taste of that Mango variety?

Mango Rainbow tasting table

🌈 Mango Rainbow tasting table: what's the taste of that Mango variety?

🥭 We just had a mango tasting table of a few early and mid-season varieties and here is our impression:
  • 🟠 Tommy Atkins (purple) - the earliest variety, sweet a juicy, but a bit fibrous. The fruit is super colorful! The tree is an excellent producer, vigorous and problem-free.
  • 🟠 Haden (red) - a full sweet flavor, less fibrous than Tommy. Very colorful, large fruit.
  • 🟠 Florigon (yellow-green, round) - completely fibreless, sweet and flavor is somewhat mild pineapple-like.
  • 🟠 Baptiste (bright yellow) - very sweet, firm flesh, good flavor.
  • 🟠 Val Carrie (green elongated) - reminds large Asian mangoes, with firm flesh, very sweet, fibreless and juicy. It is a cross between Valencia Pride (large fruit) and Carrie (excellent flavor). It took the best from its parents. Very aromatic flesh has no fiber at all.
  • 🟠 Kent (large green-and-red) - excellent flavor, large size, and very little fiber. Eat before fruit gets too ripe.


What Mango varieties have you tried this year?
Share in comments
👇

📝 See also earlier posts:

🛒 Shop Mango Trees

#Food_Forest

🏵 TopTropicals

Date:

Use your yard instead of being used by your yard!

Use your yard instead of being used by your yard!
🥭 Use your yard instead of being used by your yard!

Tired of mowing a boring lawn? Get some colors in your yard and grow edible landscape!

Select useful, functional plants:
🌺 Spectacular Eye Candies
🌳 Hedges with Benefits
🦋 Butterfly Attractors
🍒 Food Forest
👉#Food_Forest

Pick the right plants with TopTropicals free expert help.
At TopTropicals, we have 25 years experience growing rare tropical fruit trees and flowering plants.

Plants are the best therapists.
You can Grow Happiness - we can help.

💥 Still not a subscriber? Join TopTropicals community and you will know everything about tropical plants!

🏵 TopTropicals

Date:

Use your yard instead of being used by your yard!

Exotic tropical fruit and edibles - Food Forest

Exotic tropical fruit and edibles - Food Forest

🥭 Use your yard instead of being used by your yard!

Tired of mowing a boring lawn? Get some colors in your yard and grow edible landscape!

Select useful, functional plants:
🌺 Spectacular Eye Candies
🌳 Hedges with Benefits
🦋 Butterfly Attractors
🍒 Food Forest
👉#Food_Forest

Pick the right plants with TopTropicals free expert help.
At TopTropicals, we have 25 years experience growing rare tropical fruit trees and flowering plants.

Plants are the best therapists.
You can Grow Happiness - we can help.

💥 Still not a subscriber? Join TopTropicals community and you will know everything about tropical plants!

🏵 TopTropicals

Date:

How to add color to your yard

Rainbow Cassia

🌈 How to add color to your yard.
  • 🔜 Lovely Cassias we mentioned in earlier post are in full bloom today - they love the Summer Heat! They are our favorite Summer flowers.
  • 🔜 Cassia (Senna) trees are compact, fast growing, tolerant to drought and poor soils, free-flowering and relatively cold hardy. Always a great choice!
  • 🔜 Cassias come in several colors: yellow, orange, pink, red and rainbow.
  • 🔜 Yellow-flowering cassias:

  • Senna surattensis (Cassia glauca) - Scrambled Egg Bush
    Cassia siamea - Kassod Tree
    Cassia didymobotrya - Popcorn Cassia
    Senna alata - Empress Candles
    Cassia occidentalis - Fedegoso, Coffee Senna
  • 🔜 Pink/red and multi-color Rainbow cassias (which are hybrids between yellow and pink cassias):

Cassia grandis
- Red Cassia
Cassia javanica - Apple Blossom Tree
Cassia marginata - Rainbow Shower Tree
Cassia roxburghii - Ceylon Senna
Cassia x nodosa - Pink Shower, Appleblossom.

What cassias do you have in your garden?
Share photos in comments
👇

🛒 Shop showy Cassia trees

#Butterfly_Plants #Trees

🏵 TopTropicals

Date:

What is the best Avocado variety? Five more most popular Avocado cultivars - total of 10

Avocado Joey

Avocado Joey

Avocado Day

Avocado Day

Avocado Ulala (Super Hass)

Avocado Ulala (Super Hass)

Avocado Fantastic

Avocado Fantastic

Avocado Monroe

Avocado Monroe

🥑 What is the best Avocado variety? Five more most popular Avocado cultivars - total of 10!

🏆 We introduced 5 most popular varieties in our previous post. Here is 5 more, making it 10 total.

6. Joey - very cold hardy variety. Produces medium size, egg shaped purple-black fruit. It has excellent flavor. Heavy bearer. Season: September-October. It survived temperatures around 10F near San Antonio, Texas (Zone 8b). Can take temperatures down to 15F for a short period of time without significant damage.

7. Day - green, smooth skin and is shaped like a club. The fruit is of very good quality and has a nice buttery consistency. The slender tree is very cold tolerant and produces July through September.

8. Ulala (Super Hass) - sometimes called Uhlala or Uh-La-La. Cold hardy variety that can take temperatures down to 18F for short period of time without significant damage. The fruit is black skinned, with smooth texture. Seed is very small.

9. Fantastic - very cold hardy variety, supposedly the most most cold hardy of all avocados. Produces green, paper thin skin. The fruit has a creamy texture. It survived temperatures around 10F near San Antonio, Texas (Zone 8b) and can take temperatures down to 15F for short period of time without significant damage.

10. Monroe - inherited from its Guatemalan-type parent some degree of cold hardiness. In addition, the trees produced a very large, elliptical-shaped fruit with good eating qualities. Good producer, commercial cultivar in Florida. Legend has it that "it was found in Homestead, Florida on a cool dark rainy night after a meteor crashed into an abandoned papaya plantation."

📚 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!

What is your favorite Avocado variety?
Share in comments
👇

🛒 Shop Avocado Trees

#Food_Forest

🏵 TopTropicals

Date:

What is the safest alcohol?

Mango Xoai Thuong (Elephant)

Mango Xoai Thuong (Elephant)


Citron 'Buddha's Hand' (Citrus medica var. sarcodactylis)

Citron 'Buddha's Hand' (Citrus medica var. sarcodactylis)

Citron 'Buddha's Hand' (Citrus medica var. sarcodactylis)

Citron 'Buddha's Hand' (Citrus medica var. sarcodactylis)

Variagated Lemon

Variagated Lemon "Pink Lemonade"

🍾 What is the safest alcohol?
  • 🍹"Rum and Tequila are the safest alcohol drinks", - says Addiction Specialist, - "But only when consumed in combination with fruit juice".
  • 🍹Rum is considered the "safest" alcohol due to its content of zinc, potassium, and phosphorus, which result in a less aggressive impact on the liver. It should be mixed with fruit juice such as Mango or Orange (Check out our Mango Gelato Recipe)
  • 🍹 Tequila, often consumed with salt and lemon, introduces sodium chloride and vitamin C into the body, which can help reduce hangovers.


📸 Mango Xoai Thuong (Elephant)
Citron 'Buddha's Hand' (Citrus medica var. sarcodactylis)
Variagated Lemon "Pink Lemonade"

🛒 Shop Fruit Trees

#Food_Forest #Recipes

🏵 TopTropicals

Date:

How to have fresh Papaya fruit year around

Papaya fruit: Waimanalo, Sunrise, Maradol

Papaya fruit: Waimanalo, Sunrise, Maradol

Papaya tree

Papaya tree

🍊 How to have fresh Papaya fruit year around
  • 🟠 Many people include Papaya fruit in their daily diet because of its healing properties for digestive system. You can eat Papaya fresh as a tasty dessert, add to salads ripe or green, use fruit and leaf wraps in cooking - possibilities are endless.
  • 🟠 Buying papaya fruit from the store every day can become costly. So you can plant your own tree - Papayas are heavy producers. But like with many fruit trees, the question may arise:

What to do with so many fruit at once, and where to get the fruit when it's out of season?
  • 🟠 The answer is: plant several varieties. Different Papaya cultivars, similar to Mango and Avocado, have different crop seasons.
  • 🟠 If you want to enjoy fresh delicious Papaya fruit year around, plant several Papaya varieties in your garden that have different ripening times.

  • For example:
    Waimanalo - ripens from July to October and sporadically throughout the year.
    Sunrise - ripens from January through September and sporadically throughout the year.
    Maradol - ripens from August through March and sporadically throughout the year.
  • 🟠 Papaya tree doesn't take any room in your garden: similar to a palm tree, all its leaves/crown is up high, so you can plant as many trees as you want in a very limited space and still use the room under Papaya tree for other plants.


🛒 Limited time offer: Papaya collection - 3 trees for half price!

Shop Papaya varieties

📚 Learn more from previous posts:
The secret facts of Papaya's private life
Top 3 most wanted Papaya varieties

#Food_Forest

🏵 TopTropicals

Date:

What Tree Calliandra brings into your garden?

Calliandra houstoniana - Tree Calliandra

Calliandra houstoniana - Tree Calliandra

Calliandra houstoniana - Tree Calliandra, flower

Calliandra houstoniana - Tree Calliandra, flower

⚡️ #Fun_Facts: Tree Calliandra

🎉 Calliandra houstoniana - Tree Calliandra - is the only tree form of Powderpuff. It quickly grows into a bushy beautiful tree in just one season, and fluffy pink flowers attract hummingbirds and butterflies year around 🦋

🛒 Order

#Trees #Hedges_with_benefits #Butterfly_Plants

🏵 TopTropicals

Date:

Avocado fruit on a tree

Five most popular Avocado varieties

Food Forest

"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. First comes first -

The most popular Avocado varieties this year are:

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!

Avocado Hass

Photo above: Avocado Hass

Avocado Fuerte

Photo above: Avocado Fuerte

Avocado Oro Negro

Photo above: Avocado Oro-Negro

Avocado Winter Mexican

Photo above: Avocado Winter-Mexican