Garden Blog - Top Tropicals
Date:
Meet PeopleCats of TopTropicals. Cats of the Day: Abu, Raja and their 9 lives.
"Every day is an opportunity to make a new happy ending." - Wise Man
Just a couple weeks ago you met Abu and his tiny sister Raja whose Mom died after a car accident, and Kristi rescued her two
little kittens. Who knew that the troubles were not over... yet. The kittens
looked very weak and undernourished, with lots of fleas and infected wounds...
Kristi took them to the vet and after intensive care they started to look
much better... until a few days ago Raja woke up with paralysis in her back
legs... while sores on Abu's paws didn't heal. Kristi rushed them both to the hospital again.
The vet said it all didn't look good... that symptoms looked like possible rabies or cat coronavirus! He said that chances are, the kittens wouldn't last long and he put them in 10 days quarantine.
Day and night we all at TopTropicals have been praying for the little
babies. Every day vet's updates got worse... it was hard to believe that after all the efforts to save them, they may be gone!
Then all the sudden, after 5 days in the hospital, a miracle happened. All
tests came out negative! And the kitties started getting better, fighting bad
infections under
doctor Bowers care. Raja got back on her feet. There is still a long way
to full recovery from their miserable experience of a street life, but
Something saved their lives! Doctors, prayers... or simply Kristi's BELIEVE that they WILL make it! She told them when she left them in the hospital: "You have to keep fighting, you are fighters." And they did. The Nurse said Raja hissed at her every time she walked by, but when Kristi came to pick her up and opened the cage, Raja rubbed her ears and just pressed her head in Kristi's hand.
Now they both at home, sweet home, taking medication and eating sooo
much!
"I just kept thinking after all they have been through this can't be the way their story ends!" - Kristi says.
Have happy and loooong lives, kitties! All 9 of them or whatever you have
saved!
TopTropicals Cat Club
Thank you everybody for supporting us in helping PeopleCats, especially local customers who leave donations in our Cat jar in the office. If you would like to help Raja and Abu to pay their bill for 5 day hospital stay under intensive care, you may do it directly from our online store, by purchasing item 6464 Donation for Cats - TopTropicals Cat Club. Every little bit helps. All donations will go to cat care, and you will receive appreciation surprise presents from TopTropicals, including TopTropicals Cat Club bumper sticker. Thank you, and God bless you and your pets!
Check out the Video: ">Meet PeopleCats of TopTropicals and more Cat of the Day stories.
After their live threatening experience, Raja and Abu are back home safe and sound and eating like there is no tomorrow! Now, there IS tomorrow, kitties, you made it!
Date:
PeopleCats saving us from COVID-19!
Cat owners have higher immunity for COVID-19?
In our previous newsletter, we were talking about cats fighting the coronavirus and how to help them to recover.
The research made by Sabina Olex-Condor, a Polish doctor who works in a
clinic in Madrid, showed that due to cross-immunity (cats are a known reservoir
of coronaviruses) cat owners have milder sympthoms of COVID-19! Perhaps this
is due to the fact that in a cross-reaction antibodies are produced to the
virus, and owners of cats are more protected from COVID19... Read more)
Now that quarantine has been introduced almost universally because of
coronavirus, dog owners are also in a better position - they can officially go
outside for a short while. But the benefit of dogs (and other pets) is not only
that. Scientists from the Italian city of Catanzaro found in the course of
the study, that those who have a four-legged pet, have very mild symptoms of
the COVID-19. A similar effect was observed in those in contact with cattle...
To find an explanation for this phenomenon, the researchers compared viruses.
It turned out that the disease of bulls, cows and other cattle is similar to
Chinese coronavirus by 38.4%, and the virus of dogs by 36.9%. This means
that owners of animals already have some kind of immunity. So the owners of cats
and dogs, as a rule, tolerate coronavirus easier or completely asymptomatic.
Read more...
Stay safe and healthy with your PetPeople!
TopTropicals PeopleCat Club
Thank you everybody for supporting us in helping PeopleCat Community!
Make
your kind donation today and receive a surprise gift from us. Every little
bit helps! Thank you and God bless you and your pets!
Date:
PeopleCats of TopTropicals. Cats of the day: Biggy's Cat Hospital
Biggy checking on patient Abu when he couldn't walk
During these challenging times for the whole planet, we receive kind letters from our customers checking on how our PeopleCats are doing, especially those that previously were ill. And since we promised to follow up on everyone, including heart-breaking story of Raja and Abu, today's report is about everybody's progress!
As we mentioned in our previous newsletter, several cats in TopTropicals
Cat Sanctuary had a coronavirus (we call it COVID-Cat-20), or simply a cat respiratory infection. Chiefy, Snitch, Marco and Biggy had it really bad, but some other PeopleCats surprisingly didn't
get it! Just like with humans. Lucky King didn't have a single sneeze!
Finally, everybody has recovered by now, but it has been a very stressful
couple of weeks for us, considering limited vet availability at this stay-home
time. On top of that, Lil S had an abscess and was also contained in a home hospital, away
from flu-quarantined PeopleCats. Our homes become real cat hospitals!
We are thankful to our customers support, especially Silvia who made
several donations for our PeopleCats, and also recommended antiseptic pads - those worked great for Lil S!
Abu and Raja's adventures were not over... After 2 weeks of seeing a
vet treating their infections and injuries, they got worse... Then after a
couple of weeks in another hospital (and a couple thousand more in bills) we were
suggested to put them down as hopeless since they would never walk again...
But Kristi did not want to believe it, she did not give up! The kittens heard
her. They won. Today, they are all better, walking, jumping and playing!
Thank you Kristi!
Never give up hope!
Stay safe and healthy with your PeoplePets!
TopTropicals PeopleCat Club
Thank you everybody for supporting us in helping PeopleCat Community!
Make
your kind donation today and receive a surprise gift from us. Every little
bit helps! Thank you and God bless you and your pets!
Date:
URBAN TROPICAL GARDENING:
10 secrets of successful Container Mango growing on a
balcony.
Q: I live in Miami in apartment on a second floor, and I have a balcony with SE exposure. I wonder if I can grow a mango tree in a pot? Will it fruit for me? I recently moved to South Florida and I don't know much about tropical plants; but I tasted real fiberless mangos from someone's garden - it was so delicious and different from those in the grocery store. I wonder if I can have a fruiting tree on my balcony? And if yes, how do I plant and take care of it?
A:
Yes, you can! Here is what you need to do:
1) Temperature. You are lucky to live in Tropics,
keep it on a balcony year round.
2) Light. Position the pot in a spot with the most
sun exposure. Mango trees can take filtered light too, but
the less sun, the less fruit you will get.
3) Soil and Container. Use only
well drained potting mix. Step up the purchased
plant into next size container (3 gal into 7 gal, 7 gal
into 15 gal). When transplanting, make sure to keep growth
point (where roots meet the trunk) just at the top of the
soil. Covering base of the trunk with soil may kill the
plant.
4) Water. Water daily during hot season, but only
if top of soil gets dry. If it still moist, skip that day.
Mangoes (unlike
Avocados!) prefer to stay on a dry side.
5) Fertilizer. Use
balanced fertilizer once a month, 1 tsp per 1 gal of
soil. Do not fertilize during fruiting - this may cause
fruit cracks.
6) Microelements. Apply
SUNSHINE-Superfood once a month. This will help your
mango healthy, vigorous, and resistant to diseases. Use SUNSHINE-Honey to make your
fruit sweeter.
7) Insect control. Watch for scales and mealybugs,
clean with solution of soapy water + vegetable oil (may
need to repeat 2-3 times with 10 days interval), or with
systemic insecticide like imidacloprid only as needed (if
non-harsh treatment didn't help). Most Flea shampoo for
dogs contain that chemical, you may try that shampoo
solution.
8) Trimming. Once potted, do not remove leaves
that are discolored or have spots until new growth
appears. Dark dots on mango leaves, especially in humid
climate like Florida, may be signs of fungus. Treat with
fungicide according to label, and remove only badly
damaged leaves. Trim crown as needed after flowering and
fruiting (by Fall). Train into a small tree, and you may
remove some lower branches eventually.
9) Flower and fruit. Mangoes are winter bloomers
with bunches of tiny flowers coming in thousands. Many of
them set fruit (if pollinating insects present). Keep in
mind that young trees can only bare a few fruit. Normally
a tree will drop excessive fruit and keep only a few that
it can manage. To save the young tree some energy, remove
fruit if too many and leave only 2-3 for the first year.
It will pay you next year with more abundant crop.
10) Variety. Last but not least: Choose the right
variety for container culture! Pick from "condo" dwarf
varieties such as Icecream, Nam Doc Mai, Carrie, Cogshall, Julie, Fairchild, Pickering, Graham, Mallika, and a few others -
check out Mango Chart pdf
and full list of our Mango varieties.