Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

How to grow Ice Cream Bean Tree: Eating the fruit and planting the tree

Ruellia colorata, Colorama

🎄 What is the most excusive tropical Christmas flower?

🎅 A festive showstopper, Ruellia colorata, known as Colorama, is a rare and vibrant addition to exotic container plant collection. Its brilliant scarlet bracts color up for Christmas and stay bright carmine for several months.
🎅 Native to Brazil, this small plant grows 2-4 feet tall, displaying brilliant scarlet bracts and crimson flowers that stay bright for months, adding a touch of holiday cheer.
🎅 One of Colorama's most striking features is its photoperiodic response: the top leaves turn crimson red around Christmas time due to changes in daylight length, much like the beloved Poinsettia. After winter, these leaves return to green, keeping the plant lively and versatile year-round.

Photoperiodism is the process where plants respond to the length of day and night, triggering changes such as leaf coloration or flowering.

🎅 Its blooms are a magnet for butterflies and hummingbirds, making it a favorite for wildlife enthusiasts.
🎅 Colorama thrives in shady to semi-shady spots and requires regular watering to stay lush and healthy. It's perfect for USDA zones 9-11 but can also be grown in colder regions if protected from frost. For winter care in cooler climates, move it indoors or to a warm area to keep this stunning beauty happy and blooming.
🎅 When grown in pots, ensure good drainage, use rich organic soil, and place the plant in a bright location.
🎅 Prune twice a year to maintain its compact, bushy shape, and fertilize with a flowering fertilizer once established.

Why is it called Blood Feather?

A true gem for tropical plant enthusiasts, Sanchezia stenomacra - Blood Red Feather - is a rare and stunning perennial.
Native to the jungles of Peru, it thrives in humid environments with filtered light, making it perfect for lush, shaded spots in your garden, greenhouse or indoor plant collection.
Its striking blood-red flowers, shaped like delicate feathers, add a bold splash of color and are irresistible to hummingbirds. Feathery burgundy-red plumes rise above the deep green foliage and last for weeks. The true flowers are orange-red and tubular, emerging from the wispy flower heads day after day.
Upright, vigorous grower. When plants become too large, they can take a hard pruning and quickly recover and re-flower. Flowering continuously throughout the year, it even does well under partial sun.
A rare find for private collections, this showy plant is sure to become a centerpiece of your tropical paradise.

Sanchezia stenomacra - Blood Red Feather

Why is it called Blood Feather?

A true gem for tropical plant enthusiasts, Sanchezia stenomacra - Blood Red Feather - is a rare and stunning perennial.
Native to the jungles of Peru, it thrives in humid environments with filtered light, making it perfect for lush, shaded spots in your garden, greenhouse or indoor plant collection.
Its striking blood-red flowers, shaped like delicate feathers, add a bold splash of color and are irresistible to hummingbirds. Feathery burgundy-red plumes rise above the deep green foliage and last for weeks. The true flowers are orange-red and tubular, emerging from the wispy flower heads day after day.
Upright, vigorous grower. When plants become too large, they can take a hard pruning and quickly recover and re-flower. Flowering continuously throughout the year, it even does well under partial sun.
A rare find for private collections, this showy plant is sure to become a centerpiece of your tropical paradise.