Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

Georgie is traveling the World Map at PeopleCats.Garden

🍊The wild fruit with a secret: health benefits of rare Spanish Tamarind - the exotic fruit you've never heard of

Looking for a new exotic fruit to love? Meet Vangueria infausta - Spanish Tamarind, also called Wild Medlar. Native to Southern Africa, this little-known gem grows on a small tree and produces round, golden-brown fruit with a sweet-tart flavor. You can eat them fresh, dried, or even turn them into a tropical jam or homemade fruit beer!
But it's not just tasty - it's super healthy. The fruit is packed with vitamin C, fiber, and minerals like iron and magnesium. Locals use it as natural medicine: the leaves and bark are brewed into teas for colds, fevers, and stomachaches. The roots are even used for coughs and snakebites.
Secret bonus? Its bark and leaves make natural dyes in yellow, green, and purple!
The Wild Medlar is easy to grow in warm climates (Zones 9-11) and can handle poor soil and dry weather. In cooler zones, just grow it in a pot and bring it in for winter. Give it full sun, some water, and it'll reward you with 20-40 fruits per season.

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Adenium Ram Ruay

🌸 Dance into prosperity with Ram Ruay Adenium

🌸 Adenium Ram Ruay - the name of this Thai Adenium can be interpreted as follows:

Ram

Ruay

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Bob the Cat, the Optimist of PeopleCats.Garden

Grumichama - Eugenia brasiliensis

Tacca Lily - Black Bat Flower, Devil Flower

A flying bat with whiskers. Tacca. It's rare. It's weird.

Tacca Lily - also known as the Black Bat Flower or Devil Flower, looks like something brewed up in a witch's greenhouse.
The flower isn't really a single flower - it's a full-on performance. Giant black-maroon "wings" stretch out like a bat in flight, while long, drooping filaments dangle like eerie whiskers or jungle jewelry. Some can reach over a foot long!
Those weird, wild filaments? They're not just for show - they are believed to help mimic the look of decaying matter to attract pollinators like flies. Creepy? Yes. Clever? Absolutely.
The plant blooms best when it feels pampered - think filtered light, tropical vibes, and spa-level humidity. A smart indoor exotic for a bathroom with a skylight!
It grows from a rhizome, and while the Black Tacca (T. chantrieri) is prized for its spooky looks, its Green cousin (T. leontopetaloides) is actually used to make a type of tropical arrowroot starch.
Some gardeners say it takes a while to bloom (maybe a few months) - but once it does, it becomes the crown jewel of the greenhouse. People will ask if it's real. You'll say, "Yes, and it lives here!"
Tacca comes in different species/colors: Black, White, Green: