Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

👾 How to get rid of a bad luck with the Garlic Vine?

• 🟣 Garlic vine (Mansoa alliacea) is one of the most wanted flowering tropical vines.
• 🟣 When in full bloom, it looks like a cascade of blue-purple over a fence or trellis.
• 🟣 The fun part is, crushed leaves smell like garlic, which will keep away the vampires and bad luck!
• 🟣 Deep lavender flowers with white throat fading to a paler lavender within a few days, and you can see all three colors on the plant at the same time.
• 🟣 Garlic vine has moderate growth rate and can stay compact in a pot as a specimen, and even can be grown as a house plant.

📚 Garlic vine: how to get rid of bad luck

🎥 Video: Garlic vine keeps away the vampires.

🛒 Get rid of bad luck by getting the Garlic Vine

#Butterfly_Plants #Hedges_with_benefits #Fun_Facts #How_to #Nature_Wonders

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What is this spiny Hedgehog fruit and how does it taste?

👀 This is one of the coolest looking tropical fruit!

Annona montana - Mountain Soursop or Hedgehog Annona. It is also called Wild Custard Apple, Guanabana de Monte, or Wild Soursop.

• 📍 This fruit is prized for its deliciously sweet and tangy fruit, reminiscent of a blend between pineapple and strawberry. It tastes similar to regular Soursop (or Guanabana), with slightly milder flavor. The pulp is highly scented.
• 📍 The fruit, up to a pound, has the most unusual looks! Just look at these curious Hedgehog spines!
• 📍 The tree is medium sized, with beautiful, large, leathery dark green leaves that emit a strong aroma when crushed.
• 📍 Mountain Soursop is much more cold hardy than the Soursop, established trees can take some frost, down to 24F when full grown.
• 📍 Trees produce within just 2-3 years from seed, like many Annonas, and can happily grow and produce in a large container.

👨�‍👧 We guarantee that everyone who sees this fruit in your garden will ask for seeds even before they taste the fruit! And you will have lots of seeds to share because Mountain Soursop is very reliable producer with many seeds in each fruit.

🛒 Order Hedgehog Annona

📚 Learn more about Hedgehog Annona

#Food_Forest #Fun_Facts #Nature_Wonders

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🍊 Why exotic Mamey fruit is so much wanted?

Pouteria sapota, or Mamey Sapote - is Cuban favorite. It is considered by Cubans to produce the best fruit in the world.

🍹 The fruit has delicious bright orange soft flesh, sweet and pumpkin-like in flavor. The Mamey fruit is eaten fresh, in milk shakes and ice cream.

👀 Mamey has a curious growth habit: flowers emerge in clusters in the axils of fallen leaves along the branches, followed by the showy fruit. This is called cauliflorous - plants that flower and fruit from their main stems or woody trunks. Other examples are Cucumber tree and Jaboticaba.

🌳 Mamey is a slow growing, compact tree, but needs some space to spread the branches. It normally grows 20 ft in height and 20 ft wide.

🛒 Order Mamey Tree

#Food_Forest #Fun_Facts #Nature_Wonders

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Why this Akee taste of deliciousness always follows me? Definitely the favorite fruit (it's actually a vegetable).

Can't wait for the next crop this year 😼

📖 Fun Fact: Ackee is the national fruit of Jamaica and is a key ingredient in the traditional Jamaican dish, ackee and saltfish. However, it must be properly ripened and cooked due to its toxic properties when unripe.

‼️ Check out our previous post about Akee.

📚 More about Akee

🎥 YouTube Recipe: How to cook perfect Akee?

🛒 Grow your own Akee tree

#Food_Forest #Nature_Wonders #Recipes #Fun_Facts

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🗂 Index of TopTropicals Telegram Channel

Follow these tags to find your interests:

#Butterfly_Plants - Butterfly attracting plants.

#Container_Garden - Plants suitable for container garden and indoor culture.

#Fertilizers - All the truth about fertilizers, plant food supplements, and our recommendations for different types of plants.

#Food_Forest - Fruit trees, Spice plants, and Edibles.
Including: #Avocado, #Mango, #Papaya, #Guava, #Jackfruit, #Loquat

📖 #Fun_Facts - interesting plant facts and legends.

🌳 #Hedges_with_benefits - Practical approach to your landscape and how to properly select showy and useful plants for your yard.

♍️ #Horoscope - Plant Horoscopes and Cat Horoscopes. Did you know that cats also have their Zodiac signs?

🛠 #How_to - Q&A about growing plants, tropical garden lifehacks.

👀 #Nature_Wonders - Unusual, amusing, outrageous, bizarre plants...

🐈 #PeopleCats - our Favorite PeopleCats (and some PeopleDogs, too).

🌸 #Perfume_Plants - Fragrant plants and perfume trees.

✍️ #Quotes - Interesting quotes.

#Recipes - Exotic recipes for tropical fruit and edibles.

💊 #Remedies - Medicinal plants.

☁️ #Shade_Garden - Plants suitable for low light conditions.

🌼 #Trees - Spectacular flowering tropical trees.

🏆 #Win - Contests, Sweepstakes, and other specials.

Join and share with friends👇🏵
TopTropicals

New Complete Guide to Avocado Varieties. How to choose the right type of Avocado.
How many varieties of Avocado are there in cultivation? Did you know that there are hundreds of them? You probably thought there were only 2 kinds - black and green?

You may not realize is that this basic (but practical!) classification doesn't encompass all the wonderful qualities avocados have to offer.

There are numerous hybrids in cultivation, and once you plant your first tree and taste the REAL fruit (not from the grocery store), you'll be eager to explore other varieties. It's a guarantee! While it's true that avocado fruit can vary in "butter" content, most superior varieties are equally delicious.

This Avocado Variety Guide helps to choose the right variety for you. With its interactive tool, you can sort cultivars by fruit shape and quality, cold hardiness, origin, crop season, flower type A or B, tree habit and more.

🛒 Shop Avocado Varieties

#Food_Forest #Fun_Facts #How_to

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Can you eat bird-looking flowers? You can eat the whole tree!

• 🐧 Sesbania grandiflora - Hummingbird Tree - is named for its flowers resembling little birds.
• 🐧 It produces a mass of large, 3-4", curved flowers from November to June. Flowers can be coral red or white.
• 🐧 The fun part is - the flowers are edible! As well as the rest of the plant: tender leaves, green fruit (bean pods), and flowers, used in curries, salads, or fried in batter.
• 🐧 Medicinal uses: bark, leaves, gums, and flowers have medicinal properties.
• 🐧 Lower branches form a beautiful floral canopy. It is a fast growing, but a small tree that will fit any yard. Great everblooming tree for container culture.

🛒 Get an edible Hummingbird Tree

#Food_Forest #Remedies #Butterfly_Plants #Container_Garden #Fun_Facts

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What was discovered in the Pyramids: Pigeon Pea - an Ancient Superfood...

• Cajanus cajan - Pigeon Pea - existed for more than 4800 year! It's been widely consumed in South Asia, South East Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Documented in India since 2,800 BC; reached Ancient Egypt around 2,200 BC.
• Provides flavorful, nutritious, and healthy food, with potential to become widely popular like Japanese sushi 🍱
• It is a showy perennial woody shrub or small tree, 4-8 ft tall, with soft leaves. Can be grown in container
• Pretty flowers are yellow, with purple or red streaks, pods containing oval to round seeds.
• Many culinary uses: the tasty and healthy beans used in rice dishes, soups, stews, tempeh, tofu. Unripe pods eaten in curries, leaves and young shoots cooked as a vegetable.
• Rich source of fiber, protein, vitamins (B, C, E, K), and minerals (calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, zinc).
• Medicinal value: various folk medicinal uses for sores, bladderstones, jaundice, skin irritations, bronchitis, coughs, pneumonia, toothache, dysentery, and more.
• Everyone can grow it! The plant is super easy, tolerates poor soils, drought tolerant, improves soil quality like many other beans.

📚 Learn more about Pigeon Pea

🛒Grow your own Pigeon Pea Superfood

#Food_Forest #Remedies #Container_Garden #Fun_Facts

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Why Dutchman's Pipe is the best butterfly attracting vine? Smell it!

Without any doubt, Aristolochia, or Dutchman's Pipe, is one of the best butterfly plants.

• 🍃 Aristolochia trilobata - Birthwort Dutchman's Pipe is celebrated for its unique and intricate flowers that resemble Dutch smoking pipes, hence its name.
• 🍃Dutchman's Pipe flowers emit a scent mimicking decaying matter, which certain butterfly species, like the Pipevine Swallowtail, find irresistible 💩🙄
• 🍃The butterflies lay their eggs on the plant, as it serves as a suitable host for their larvae, contributing to the plant's ecological significance by promoting pollination and biodiversity.
• 🍃 As a result, it not only beautifies gardens but also supports local butterfly populations, enriching the ecosystem.
• 🍃 Beyond its distinctive appearance, it's valued for its historical use in traditional medicine, particularly for its alleged healing properties.

🛒 Bring butterflies to your garden!

#Butterfly_Plants #Hedges_with_benefits #Fun_Facts

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"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now." - Chinese Proverb

📷 Koelreuteria paniculata - Golden Rain Tree, one of the most spectacular trees of subtopics that is actually very cold hardy and drought resistant.

• 🔰 Cascading clusters of bright yellow flowers in summer are followed by bright pink, papery, lantern-like seed pods that gracefully dangle through autumn.
• 🔰 Its elegant foliage and attractive form make it a captivating centerpiece in any garden or landscape.
• 🔰 Very fast growing, nice solution for a shade tree.
• 🔰 According to ancient Chinese manuscripts, the Golden Rain Tree is crucial for Dragons, as it is believed to be connected to their existence, guarding and complementing each other. Growing these plants is considered auspicious and is believed to safeguard the Dragon family.

2024 is a year of Dragon! 🐉

🛒 Order Golden Rain Tree

#Quotes #Fun_Facts

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