Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

🍊Why your gut is begging for papaya

• 🌴Papaya (Carica papaya) is more than just a tasty tropical fruit - it's a natural remedy for your gut. Thanks to an enzyme called papain, it helps with digestion, bloating, and even supports immune health with high levels of vitamin C and A.
• 🌴But here's what makes papaya a must-have in every garden: it's fast, space-saving, and super productive. Many trees start fruiting within a year!
• 🌴Dwarf varieties only reach 6-8 feet but still give you full-sized fruit that's easy to harvest.
• 🌴Grow it in the ground or in a container - it thrives in sun, handles light freezes, and even stands strong in high winds.
• 🌴Low effort, high reward. Sweet fruit, strong plant. What more do you need?

📚 Learn more from previous posts:

• 🟡more about #Papaya
• 🟡 How to grow tons of fruit in limited space - it's incredible!
• 🟡 How to have fresh Papaya fruit year around
• 🟡 Top 3 most wanted Papaya varieties
• 🟡 Carefree Garden: practical Guide to Growing Papaya.

🛒 Your gut will thank you - plant Papaya

#Food_Forest #Papaya

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🐈 August 8 - International Cat Day: cats taking over?

Let's be honest - cats kind of rule the world right now. There are nearly 700 million of them, and they're not just lounging on your couch anymore. They've taken over the internet, inspired museum exhibits, popped up in luxury ads, and even have their own global holidays (yes, more than one). They are so much more than just pets - they're pop culture royalty 👑

• 
  🐈‍⬛ Cat #Fun_Facts:

• 🐾 There are about 700 million cats in the world. That's one for every ten people... and some of us are definitely over our quota.
• 
  🐾 People literally buy movie tickets to watch cat videos. Last summer in New York, a full hour of nothing but cat clips played in theaters - 73 minutes straight of cat clips at the cinema - and people loved it!
• 
  🐾 Cats are ad superstars. They show up in everything from luxury fashion to car commercials. They star in memes, viral videos, and major luxury brand and car campaigns. Apparently, if you want people to care, just add a cat.
• 
  🐾 Cats have three international holidays. Not one, not two - three! February 20, August 8, and October 29. Meanwhile, world peace only gets one. Priorities.
• 
  🐾 A cat exhibit in Poland broke records. A cat-themed show in Krakow's Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology drew the highest visitor numbers in 30 years - 57,186 attendees.
• 
  🐾One chubby cat in Athens is a Google Maps tourist attraction. Titan, an orange-and-white street cat near the Acropolis, is so famous he's on Google Maps. Yes, right next to the Parthenon.
• 
  🐾Cats have been hanging around humans for over 10,000 years. It started when our trash attracted mice - and the cats came for the buffet.
• 
  🐾Ancient Egyptians elevated cats. They didn't just keep them around - they gave them fancy burials, turned them into art, and even made them into gods.

🐈📸 TopTropicals cats Google and Shortstuff ruling at Top Tropicals PeopleCats.Garden. 

#PeopleCats

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😶 Black n White

"To make it easier to find a black cat, place it on white."

🐈📸 Georgie, Google and Klaksa the cats at Top Tropicals PeopleCats.Garden. 

#PeopleCats

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💜 What is the best purple flowering bush? Glory bush!

• 🟣 Why everyone in Florida wants this fuzzy-leaf Tibouchina? Tibouchina multiflora (grandifolia), Glory bush, Quaresmeira

is one of those plants that stops people in their tracks.
• 🟣 The leaves are huge, soft, and fuzzy - up to 10 inches wide, sometimes 12 in shade. They're as fun to touch as they are to look at!
• 🟣 And when it blooms? You get bold spikes of purple flowers from August through winter, turning your garden into a purple paradise.
• 🟣 But here's the twist: the older leaves can surprise you by turning shades of orange and red - a rare bonus of fall color in the tropics.
• 🟣 It thrives in sun or shade, grows fast, and handles Florida’s winters without a fuss.

This isn’t just a flowering shrub. It’s a statement.

🛒 Make your garden pop with purple: explore Tibouchina plants

📚 Learn more:
Why this Tibouchina is so popular

#Hedges_with_benefits

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🍴 Be happy with what you have: this might be all you've got!

"Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have." - Rabbi Hyman Schachtel

🐈📸 Jim II is snacking on pepper seedlings - sweet and spicy! At PeopleCats.Garden. 

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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🔥 A banana with no bananas? Scarlet red flowers of Musa coccinea.

• 💃 Musa coccinea, Scarlet Banana, is a small tropical plant from China and Vietnam that grows like a banana but doesn’t bother with fruit you can eat. Instead, it puts out tall, upright spikes of red bracts with yellow flowers tucked inside - like a torch made of petals.
• 💃 Each stem flowers once and then fades, but new shoots keep popping up from the base, so the plant just keeps going. The leaves are classic banana style: big, dark green, and glossy.
• 💃 You’ll see the flowers in summer, and they last a long time - bright, strange, and impossible to ignore. The plant stays compact, does well in pots, and even the fruit (small and orange) adds a weird touch. It's one of those plants that doesn't try to fit in.

🛒 For fans of strange plants

📚 Learn more:

• 💋About #Bananas
• 💋Top 3 Fastest-Growing Red-Leaf Bananas
• 💋Top Ornamental Banana Varieties - Which One Belongs in Your Garden?
• 💋Musa Zebrina Rojo - Blood Leaf Banana

#Nature_Wonders #Container_Garden #Bananas

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How to catch a cat (the fast and easy way)

Step 1: Put down a box.
That's it. You've already won.

Step 2: Remove the first cat from the box.
It resets automatically. No assembly required.

Step 3: Wait 0.5 seconds.
Next cat enters trap willingly.

Step 4: Repeat as needed.
Box works on all models.

Final step: All cats are now removed from the kitchen.
You can finally eat in peace.
Much easier than crawling under the table like a maniac.

🐈📸 Top Tropicals cats: Jacques, Macaron and Klaksa at PeopleCats.Garden. 

#PeopleCats

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👄 Blue lips smell like violets

• 💙 Sclerochiton harveyanus - Mazabuka, or Blue Lips blooms with quirky blue-to-purple flowers that really do look like lips. And in the tropical plant world, blue flowers are rare. And they are lightly violet-lavender-fragrant!
• 💙 Even better? It's a total shade lover. No need for blazing sun - this beauty is happy to bloom in the cool, leafy spots of your garden.
• 💙 Loved by bees and birds, and just the right mix of weird and wonderful.

🛒 Add Blue Lips to your shade garden

📚 Learn more:

• ▫️Why this blue tropical flower has a violet fragrance?
• ▫️Surprising Violet fragrance of the Blue Lips

#Perfume_Plants #Shade_Garden #Butterfly_Plants

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