Plant of the month:
Lipstick Tree, Annatto

🐠 How Heliconias add tropical vibe to your garden

🦜 Heliconia is a fantastic addition to any garden with its bold, tropical vibe! Known for its striking, colorful bracts in red, orange, or yellow, it attracts pollinators like hummingbirds. This low-maintenance plant thrives in warm climates, adds height and texture to landscapes, and grows well in partial shade or full sun. Plus, it's perfect for creating lush privacy screens or vibrant focal points.

📚 Learn more from previous post:
How to grow Lobster Claw

🛒 Plant Heliconias and gingers

#Hedges_with_benefits #Shade_Garden

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🦚 Wait until he sings you a song...

Many people have cats 🤗
Many people have dogs 🥺
Some have Parrots with benefits
...and some have Peacocks!

• 
  📸 Our photographer from New Zealand Eleanor Wilks has this beauty as a pet!


Put a ❤️ if you want one!
Put👍 if you've heard Peacock singing!

Share your pets in comments!
• 📸 🐈🐈🐈👇

🔠 More #PeopleCats in our Garden:
PeopleCats.Garden 

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🥰 Why Hog Plum is the most popular fruit tree after mango?

• 🍑 Spondias purpurea - Hog Plum, Mombin, Jocote, Ciruela... This fast-growing, spreading tree with thick branches is a favorite of tropical fruit lovers!
• 🍑 In spring, its showy, fragrant flowers bloom from bare, leafless branches in shades of red, purple, or yellow, hinting at the color of the fruit to come. The tree produces oval to round mildly sweet fruits, 1 to 2 ½ inches long, with waxy skin, juicy flesh, and a strong plum-like flavor.
• 🍑 Highly productive, the pleasant aroma of the ripe fruit can be smelled from many feet away!
• 🍑 The fruits are enjoyed fresh, stewed with sugar, or pickled while green for East Indian dishes. Mombin butter, made like apple butter, is especially delicious.
• 🍑 Even the young leaves can be cooked, though they carry a tangy, sour taste.
• 🍑 Deciduous and quick-growing, this tree can bear fruit before sprouting new leaves in spring. It thrives in many soil types and propagates easily from large cuttings, making it perfect for a living fence.
• 🍑 Very fast growing, and fruiting right away. Fruiting from May through July, the Hog Plum brings beauty, fragrance, and flavor to your edible landscape.

🛒 Plant Mombin Hog Plum

#Food_Forest

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🥶 10 key tips for successful overwintering of tropical plants indoors

1. Maximize Light: The more light, the better. There's no such thing as too much indoor light. If windows aren't enough, use LED grow lights, which stay cool and won't dry the air. Rotate plants every few days to prevent uneven leaf loss.
2. Reduce Watering: Less light and cooler temperatures mean plants need less water. Allow the soil to dry between waterings, and avoid overwatering - combination of cold + wet is especially harmful.
3. Maintain Moderate Temperatures: Most tropicals are happy with daytime temperatures around 75F and nights at 50-60F. In sunrooms or greenhouses, some can handle 45F if watering is kept to a minimum.
4. Boost Humidity: Avoid placing plants near heaters or vents that dry the air. Misting daily helps, or place pots on trays filled with water and pebbles to raise humidity around them.
5. Monitor for Pests: Check leaves weekly to catch insect problems early, as pests can cause serious damage or even kill the plant indoors.
6. Fertilize Smart: Use ONLY liquid, amino-acid-based fertilizers like Sunshine Boosters throughout winter; they won't burn roots since their dosage adjusts with reduced watering. Avoid dry, granulated, and EDTA-based fertilizers during winter and dormancy.
7. Use Micro-Nutrients: Along with macro-elements (fertilizers), supplement with micro-elements like Sunshine Superfood and bio-stimulants such as Sunshine Epi to build strong plants with robust immune systems, better able to withstand unfavorable conditions and resist diseases.
8. Hold Off on Pruning: Leaf drop and leggy growth are normal responses to winter. Wait until spring to prune, when new growth starts, to encourage branching and healthy foliage.
9. Don't Repot Yet: During dormancy, roots slow their growth. Repotting too soon risks root rot. Wait until spring when new growth appears to transplant into a larger container. Typically, roots grow in proportion to the above-ground parts.
10. Let Them Rest: Winter is a natural resting period. Avoid forcing growth - your plants will reward your patience with vibrant leaves and flowers when spring returns.


🛒 Shop Indoor plants

#How_to

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❄️ How to overwinter tropical plants indoors

❓ I have two Mandevillas that thrived on my balcony all summer. Now that cold weather is approaching, I've moved them indoors to bright spots, but they're dropping and wilting leaves. How can I keep them healthy until spring? Should I fertilize them? Can Mandevillas grow indoors year-round?

✔️ First, keep in mind that the plants we call "indoor plants" or "house plants" are all tropical. However, not all tropical plants are suitable for indoor living. Some, especially shade-loving ones, thrive in indoor conditions, which is why we refer to them as "house plants" (philodendrons, monsteras, calatheas, peperomias, and many others, including some succulents). Others are less adaptable to the lower light and humidity typical of indoor spaces, but with a little extra care, you can overwinter them inside and move them back outdoors in spring. Mandevillas are no exception! Even tropical trees, including fruit trees, can tolerate a few months indoors if given the right conditions for semi-dormancy. Below are the 10 key tips for successfully overwintering tropical plants indoors.

Find out the secrets of overwintering in our next post ⬇️

🛒 Shop Indoor plants

#How_to

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🐱 Cat of the month: Persephone - the Queen of the Underworld

• 
  🔠ell, well, well... it seems we have a new purrsonality around here! A few days ago, we discovered a mysterious little purrrson living under the TopTropicals office.
• 
  🔠id a customer leave her behind? Or was she simply drawn to our PeopleCats paradise? Who can say!
• 
  🔠ither way, since she made her grand entrance from the underground, we decided to name her Persephone, after the Greek goddess and queen of the Underworld.
• 
  🔠ersephone has come a long way - she finally let us pet her, and now she's taken over the office desk!
• 
  🔠he even drools a little when she gets those precious head scratches. Persephone has officially joined our Nursery Team, adding her charm to Customer Service
• 
  🔠ome and see our #PeopleCats (including the queen herself!) in purrrrson at our Garden Center in Ft Myers, Florida!

Share your cets in comments!
📸 🐈🐈🐈👇

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🌈 Why some cassias are called "Rainbow"?

Cassias, besides yellow, can be pink, red, or with a multi-color flower combination.

Rainbow cassias are hybrids between yellow and pink or red cassias.

Some of the most showy cassias are:
Cassia grandis - Red Cassia
Cassia javanica - Apple Blossom Tree
Cassia marginata - Rainbow Shower Tree
Cassia roxburghii - Ceylon Senna
Cassia x nodosa - Pink Shower, Appleblossom.

♦️ Cassia trees are compact, fast growing, tolerant to drought and poor soils, free-flowering and relatively cold hardy. Always a great choice!

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

📚 More about cassias from previous posts:
How to add color to your yard
Rainbow Cassias

🎥 Rainbow cassia - Cassia Marginata.

🛒 Shop showy Cassia trees

#Butterfly_Plants #Trees

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🦜👌 Cash or Crackers? Polly Prefers Green!

"No matter whether you train gators or grow plants, the right person at checkout always makes the day."

Share your pets in comments!
📸 🐈🐈🐈👇

🔠 #PeopleCats in our Garden:
PeopleCats.Garden 

#Quotes

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🐰 What plant is a vine, a cactus, a tasty fruit, and a pretty flower at the same time? Barbados Gooseberry!

Perescia aculeata - Barbados Gooseberry is in full bloom all Fall through Winter, these flowers are so pretty!

📚 Learn more about this fruiting Cactus vine with pretty flowers and tasty fruit:
What is Barbados Gooseberry?

🛒 Plant Barbados Gooseberry

#Food_Forest #Hedges_with_benefits

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