Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

🌷 Curcuma: one plant, two powers - color and spice!

• 🌷 Curcuma, also called Siam Tulip or Turmeric, brings bold tropical blooms and practical benefits to your garden.
• 🌷 The bright pink, white, yellow, or purple flowers rise above lush foliage and last up to two weeks in a vase.
• 🌷 It's easy to grow in pots or beds - just keep the soil moist and give it filtered light.
• 🌷 Best of all, the roots are the source of turmeric, the golden spice used in cooking and natural wellness. Beautiful above, useful below!

🛒 Plant Curcuma for cut flowers and herbal use

📚 Learn more :
▫️ Curcuma - the tropical tulip with a secret spice twist

#Food_Forest #Container_Garden

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🏃‍♂️ Never be bored

"Never be bored, and you will never be boring." - Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

🐈📸 Jim II and Kiwi the cats entertaining themselves on a new cat tree at TopTropicals Arizona office. We have 7 rescued cats there... Plus 14 in Ft Myers and 12 in Sebring locations. Total of 33 and growing!

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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🐰 Who’s stealing my fruit?! How to protect mango fruit from critters.

• It's Mango season! But somehow, the mangoes are disappearing. Looks familiar? Squirrels, bunnies, birds, rats, raccoons… They all love the fruit. But sharing? Not so much. You’re lucky to get their leftovers!
• Here’s what we do to protect our mangoes and avocados - and it works! We use fruit protection bags. They are made of a strong mesh netting with easy drawstrings - keep out bugs, birds, and every other freeloading critter! Just slip it over the fruit and tighten both ends. They’re inexpensive, about 15 cents each, worth every penny! 💰

🐁🐿 Save your fruit - and maybe even have some left to share!

🛒 Don't own a mango tree yet? Plant one now to enjoy fruit tomorrow!

📚 Learn more:
How to protect fruit in your garden from greedy competitors
Penelope, the Squirrel Cat

#How_to #Food_Forest #Mango_Rainbow #Mango

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🍷 To the new beginnings!

"Celebrate endings - for they precede new beginnings." - Jonathan Lockwood Huie

🐈📸 Philemon discovering a new beginnings shenanigans at TopTropicals Rescued PeopleCats.Garden

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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🍅 Why everyone's falling for the Hog Plum - the tropical fruit tree that does it all!

• ♦️The Hog Plum tree (Spondias purpurea), that you saw blooming in March, set the fruit by May and now in July - it's finally ripening at TopTropicals garden, and wow, what a crop!
• ♦️Also known as Jocote, Spanish Plum, or Purple Mombin, this fast-growing tropical tree is a superstar in the garden. It explodes with bright flowers right on bare branches in spring, then follows up with juicy, plum-like fruits that smell amazing and taste even better.
• ♦️The fruits are super versatile - eat them fresh, cook them down with sugar, pickle them green, or even make a spread like apple butter. You can even cook the young leaves for a tangy side dish.
• ♦️It grows fast, fruits early, and does great in all kinds of soil. Want a living fence that feeds you? This is it.
• ♦️And it's not just tasty - Hog Plum is packed with vitamin C, fiber, and antioxidants. It’s refreshing, great for digestion, and may even help with blood pressure and blood sugar.
• ♦️ If mango is king, Hog Plum is definitely next in line!

🛒 Sweet fruit, right this way!

📚 Learn more:

• ▫️ Hog Plum health benefits
• ▫️ This is how the flowers of a Hog Plum look like
• ▫️ The Hog Plum tree fruit
• ▫️ What fruit tree is full of fruit year around

#Food_Forest

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Did you know that cannonballs grow on a tree? The Marvelous Cannonball Tree.

📱

#Nature_Wonders #Trees

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🐈 All for one and one for all

"All for one and one for all!" - Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

🐈📸 Gutalin (a.k.a. Google the Cat), Jacques and Klaksa at TopTropicals

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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💙 The fastest vine to cover a fence - everyone asks about it

• 🔵 If you need a beautiful vine to cover your fence quickly - plant Thunbergia laurifolia, Thunbergia grandiflora - Blue Sky vine, Blue Trumpet Vine, Scrambling sky flower.
• 🔵 This vigorous tropical climber explodes with 3-inch trumpet-shaped blossoms in a shade of blue so vivid, it looks unreal. In just one season, it can cover a fence, trellis, or arbor with lush green foliage and long cascading chains of flowers.
• 🔵 Once established, it blooms heavily from fall through spring, creating a waterfall of sky blue that feels cool and soothing even in the heat. It's not just a pretty face either - its fast growth makes it ideal for quickly creating privacy, shade, or a living screen.
• 🔵 Thrives in heat and humidity, low-maintenance once established
• 🔵 Dramatic focal point, pollinator magnet, and conversation piece! And if blue isn't your color, the rare white version, Thunbergia grandiflora Alba, offers the same performance in pure ivory tones.

🛒 Get the vine everyone asks about

📚 Learn more:
▫️How to have the Blue Sky in just one season and forever

#Hedges_with_benefits

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