Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

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Why tipping mango trees makes them fruiting machines (DIY Garden Tip) A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Why tipping mango trees makes them fruiting machines (DIY Garden Tip)

Why tipping mango trees makes them fruiting machines (DIY Garden Tip)

📱

🌳 Want more mangoes from your backyard tree?
In this step-by-step guide, Ed from Top Tropicals in Fort Myers, Florida, shows how to tip mango trees to boost branching, improve structure, and increase fruit production. Whether you're growing Valencia Pride, Orange Sherbet, or Glen mangoes - this method works!

✔️ You'll learn:

  • ▫️When and how to tip branches
  • ▫️ What tools to use (and how to clean them)
  • ▫️Real before-and-after results from trees in our Florida garden
  • ▫️Tips for shaping young trees for long-term success


🛒 Get your own mango trees

🌱 More garden tips and tropical fruit care

#Food_Forest #Mango #Mango_Rainbow

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Do pet repellers work? Here is your answer. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Do pet repellers work? Here is your answer

Bob, James Coconuts, Scooby and Philemon the cats

🐾 Do pet repellers work? Here is your answer.

Product marketing line:

"Keep your pets off furniture painlessly with our pet repeller mat, deterring them with sound and texture, protecting your belongings."

Right.

🐈📸 Bob, James Coconuts, Scooby and Philemon testing new TopTropicals protective gear at PeopleCats.Garden. 

#PeopleCats

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Strawberry Guava for best Margaritas - the easiest fruit tree you'll ever grow! A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Strawberry Guava for best Margaritas - the easiest fruit tree youll ever grow!

Strawberry Guava, Cattley Guava - Psidium littorale

🍓Strawberry Guava for best Margaritas - the easiest fruit tree you'll ever grow!
  • 🍓 If you're looking for a cold-hardy tropical fruit tree that thrives on neglect, you’ve found it: Strawberry Guava, or Cattley Guava (Psidium littorale). It's our favorite Guava at Top Tropicals!
  • 🍓 This fast-growing, evergreen small tree or dense bush doesn’t mind poor soil, limestone, or salt. It’s hardy to the low 20s F, drought-tolerant once established, and can even handle short-term flooding. Great as a hedge, windbreak, or container specimen, it also adds beauty year-round with glossy green leaves, peeling reddish bark, and soft red new growth.
  • 🍓 You’ll get round, tangy-sweet fruit from spring through fall - perfect for snacking, jams, or jellies, juices, and adding to all kinds of drinks, especially Margaritas and Mojitos! 🍸
  • 🍓 The red and yellow types are both tasty, with the yellow often a bit larger and sweeter. The sweetest and the most flavorful Cattley Guava variety is Hawaiian Gold - Psidium littorale var. Lucidum. This one is our favorite for eating out of hand!
  • 🍓 Cattley Guava is productive, low-maintenance, and ornamental - one of the easiest tropical fruit trees to grow in poor or alkaline soils.


🛒 Add a sweet guava hedge to your yard

📚 Learn more:

#Food_Forest #Guava

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Squeaky little things. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Squeaky little things

Labrador puppies

🐶 Squeaky little things

Sweet Memories: our Labrador puppies - Wigglebutts - 2.5 years ago!

🐈📸 Sunshine, Draco, Lila and their brothers and sisters in December 2022 at Top Tropicals Bfarm PeopleCats.Garden. 

#PeopleCats

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What is the best pineapple to grow at home. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

What is the best pineapple to grow at home

White Jade Pineapple - Eleuthera

🍍What is the best pineapple to grow at home
  • 🍍 Pineapple plants (Ananas comosus) are easy to grow, virtually carefree plants. You you plant a few - you will always have the benefit of fresh and delicious fruit on the table, full of health benefits.
  • 🍍 White Jade Pineapple, also known as Eleuthera, is one of the most prized pineapple varieties you can grow at home - and for good reason. If you're only growing one pineapple, make it this one. And here is why:


✔️ Six reasons why you want to grow White Jade Pineapple
  • 🟡Super sweet and low acid: White Jade has tender white flesh that's ultra-sweet with almost no acidity. The flavor is smooth and rich, far better than anything you'll find in a grocery store.
  • 🟡Edible core: The core is soft, juicy, and 100% edible - no waste and no tough center.
  • 🟡Spineless leaves: Unlike most pineapples, White Jade has soft, spineless leaves, making it much easier and safer to handle.
  • 🟡Compact and container-friendly: It stays small, perfect for pots, patios, or tight garden spaces.
  • 🟡Backyard hero, not for shipping: This variety bruises easily, so it's rarely seen in stores - but perfect for home gardeners who want top-tier taste.
  • 🟡Tropical beauty + fast fruiting: With its blue-green foliage and striking fruit, it's ornamental as well as productive. Expect fruit in as little as 18-24 months with good care.

  • 🍍 Although often mistaken as a Hawaiian variety, White Jade actually originated in Eleuthera, Bahamas. It thrives in warm climates and rewards gardeners with a sweet, low-acid treat unlike any commercial pineapple. It is grown in Hawaii now, especially by backyard gardeners and small farms, because it does so well there.
  • 🍍 Make sure to feed your pineapple plants what they crave - sunshine and nutrients! Boost their growth with - SUNSHINE Ananas - Pineapple and Bromeliad Booster. This special formula gives your plants the energy they need to thrive and produce tons of sweet, juicy fruit just for you!


🛒 Plant the pineapple that grocery stores can’t sell

📚 Learn more:

#Food_Forest #Container_Garden #Discover
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🍈 Morinda citrifolia - Noni: A Plant with Purpose

Young woman with a potted Noni tree, close-up of Noni fruit growing on the branch, and a ripe Noni fruit with its distinct bumpy skin.

What are the benefits of growing a Noni tree?

Noni isn't just ornamental - it earns its place. This small tropical tree is packed with potential, from fruiting fast to delivering real, time-tested benefits.

  • Begins fruiting within a year
  • Flowers and fruits nearly non-stop if grown in proper conditions
  • Grows well in containers, indoors or out
  • Used to support immunity, joints, digestion, and more
  • Leaves and fruit are both used in traditional remedies

How to Grow Noni Tree

In Zone 10 and warmer, Noni grows beautifully outdoors in full to part sun. It thrives in poor soil, tolerates salt, and bounces back from drought. Just keep it warm and lightly fertilized for year-round flowering and fruiting.

For indoor growers, Noni adapts well to containers. Place it near a bright window or under grow lights. It can tolerate lower light, though fruiting may slow. Keep soil moist but not soggy. Leaves may drop if it gets too cold or too dry - warmth is key. In deep shade, the foliage becomes lush, dark, and ornamental.

Pro tip: Start with a 3 gal or larger plant for faster fruit production.

Shop Noni Trees

How to Make Fresh Noni Juice

A glass with noni juice next to a ripe Noni fruit with its distinct bumpy skin and noni leaves

Got fruit on your Noni tree? Here's how to turn it into something powerful.

Step-by-Step Guide:

  • Wash the ripe fruit thoroughly
  • Cut into small chunks
  • Blend until smooth
  • Strain (optional) through mesh or cheesecloth
  • Add apple or blueberry juice to soften the flavor
  • Store in clean glass jars and refrigerate

Why bother growing Noni?

Fresh Noni juice supports:

  • Joint and bone strength
  • Energy and endurance
  • Immune balance and metabolism
  • Healthy gums and blood pressure regulation
  • Weight management and nutrient absorption
This isn't just juice. It's tradition in a glass - and it came from your own plant.

Grow your own noni juice

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💖 What if your next houseplant could make medicine?

Meet Noni, Morinda citrifolia, a tropical tree with deep roots in Polynesian healing. For over 2000 years, it's been used to support health from the inside out: pain relief, immune strength, digestion, skin, joints, energy, and more. And now, you can grow it yourself.

This isn't some fussy rainforest diva. Noni is one of the easiest fruit trees to grow, especially in a pot. It flowers and fruits year-round, even in a 3-gallon container. Indoors, it thrives in bright light and tolerates dry air and skipped waterings. Outdoors in Zone 10+, it's practically unstoppable - fast, forgiving, and constantly flowering and fruiting.

It's also a conversation piece. The glossy leaves can grow over a foot long. The fruit looks like something from another planet! And every part of the plant - fruit, leaves, seeds, even roots - has been used in traditional medicine.

Grow it for health. Grow it for curiosity. Grow it because your ficus never made you juice.

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Undocumented use of a hairbrush. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Undocumented use of a hairbrush

Niki the cat

💳 Undocumented use of a hairbrush

"You can be gorgeous at thirty, charming at forty, and irresistible for the rest of your life." - Coco Chanel (and here is her Chanel No5 Tree, by the way)

🐈📸 Niki is making herself beautiful for a date at PeopleCats.Garden. 

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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Cocoplum: secret fruit in your hedge. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Cocoplum: secret fruit in your hedge

Bahamas Cocoplum - Chrysobalanus icaco

🍒 Cocoplum: secret fruit in your hedge
  • 🍒 Most people think Cocoplum is just a boring hedge plant: Bahamas Cocoplum (Chrysobalanus icaco). Thick, green, easy to trim - great for privacy. But hidden in all that greenery? Super-sweet plum-like fruit that are edible and very tasty! They look like small plums and come in pink, purple, or white when ripe.
  • 🍒 Cocoplum is native to Florida and has been quietly feeding people for generations, long before it became a landscaping go-to. The fruit is mild, a little sweet, and great for snacking or making into jam.
  • 🍒 Cocoplum isn't just a tasty surprise - it comes with some health perks too:

▫️Rich in antioxidants - especially anthocyanins, which give the purple fruit its color and help fight free radicals in the body.
  • ▫️Good source of fiber - helps with digestion and keeping you full.
  • ▫️Contains vitamin C - supports your immune system and skin health.
  • ▫️Low in calories - great for snacking without guilt.
  • ▫️So when you bite into a Cocoplum, you're not just tasting Florida - you're getting a little wellness boost too.


🍯 Quick Cocoplum Jam:
  • 🔸2 cups ripe Cocoplums
  • 🔸1 cup sugar
  • 🔸1 cup water*
  • 🔸1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 🔸Mash it all up, cook on low 20-30 minutes until thick. Cool and enjoy!


*To make a delicious summer drink, add 10 cups of water and just get to boil. Let sit 2 hrs, mash up, drain fruit and cool to enjoy.

So next time you walk by a Cocoplum hedge, check for fruit. There might be a free snack waiting for you!

🛒 Get your edible hedge Cocoplum: privacy with perks

#Food_Forest #Recipes

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Crunchy Pate??? Sound ON! A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Crunchy Pate??? Sound ON!

Marco the cat is eating crunchy pate

Crunchy Pate??? Sound ON! 📢

"I'm so hungry I could eat a horse. And chase the rider." - Dorothy Parker

⚠️ WARNING: sound effects 18+!
Marco at PeopleCats.Garden is eating his pate with a side of sound effects. Apparently, he ordered pate "extra crispy". Volume up for maximum crunch!

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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