Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

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

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🗂 Index of TopTropicals Telegram Channel

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#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.
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📖 #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.

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🌈 Need more ideas for compact and showy flowering trees? Try Rainbow Cassias.

• ♦️ Some hybrid cassias have spectacular color combinations and are called Rainbow Cassias.
• ♦️ We mentioned earlier some sunny, yellow-flowering cassias: Senna surattensis (Cassia glauca) - Scrambled Egg Bush, and Cassia siamea - Kassod Tree.
• ♦️ Other cassias can be pink or with multi-color flower combination, so-called Rainbow cassias (which are hybrids between yellow and pink cassias):

Cassia grandis - Red Cassia
Cassia javanica - Apple Blossom Tree
Cassia marginata - Rainbow Shower Tree
Cassia roxburghii - Ceylon Senna
Cassia x nodosa - Pink Shower, Appleblossom.
• ♦️ Cassia trees are compact, fast growing, tolerant to drought and poor soils, free-flowering and relatively cold hardy. Always a great choice!

❓ What cassias do you have in your garden? Share photos in comments👇

🎥 Rainbow cassia - Cassia Marginata.

🛒 Shop showy Cassia trees

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👁 Why is it called Clock Vine? It will cover a Pagoda in NO TIME!

• 🕰 Thunbergia mysorensis - Clock Vine - is a stunning vine originating from India.
• 🕰 Vibrant yellow flowers with a dark mauve border, of a unique, eye-catching shape.
• 🕰 Supposedly, it is called the Clock Vine because the flowers hang down in a regular, clock-like pattern around the vine. This consistent and orderly arrangement of the blooms resembles the numbers on a clock face, giving the plant its charming and unique name. Do you see it in the flower?
• 🕰 The blooms hang in cascading clusters, creating a spectacular display that can beautifully drape over a trellis or pagoda.
• 🕰 Attaracts butterflies and hummingbirds.
• 🕰 Though it's one of the most popular species among garden enthusiasts, its rarity adds an element of exclusivity to any garden lucky enough to host it.

🛒 Shop flowering vines

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🍞 Breaking news: flower smells of freshly baked bread! It smells so good, you want to eat it!

• 🍔 Vallaris glabra - Bread Flower - is one of the most impressive tropical vines that is very popular in Thailand and other South-East Asia countries.
• 🍔 Moderate growth woody climber with clusters of freshly-baked-bread fragrant white flowers.
• 🍔 Easy to care and tolerates wide range of conditions. It can be trained as a compact bush and is good for container culture.
• 🍔 Attracts butterflies and hummingbirds.
• 🍔 Relatively cold hardy, mild frost doesn't do any damage to it, even large tropical leaves stay glossy, green and healthy.
• 🍔 It is very vigorous grower that can create nice privacy hedge or cover a large fence.

❓ Have you smelled the Bread Flower? Did you like the fragrance? Share in comments👇

🛒 Shop tropical vines

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🔥 Everyone wants this showy Butterfly Attractor! Dwarf Poinciana.

• 🟥 Caesalpinia pulcherrima - Dwarf Poinciana, that we mentioned earlier, is probably number 1 flowering plant that everybody wants in their garden.
• 🟥 Pride of Barbados, Dwarf Poinciana, Peacock flower, Flower Fence - common names speak for themselves.
• 🟥 National flower of Barbados.
• 🟥 Comes in different colors - red, yellow, pink, orange...
• 🟥 Eye-stopper! Showy flowers almost year round.
• 🟥 Butterfly magnet

🛒 Shop Dwarf Poinciana

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Medusa's Head Flower - from Greek mythology...

• 🐙 Strophanthus preussii - Poison Arrow Vine, Medusa Flower - has an intriguing flower!
• 🐙 The faintly fragrant flowers have long, slender, and curly petals that resemble the snakes on Medusa's head from Greek mythology, giving it the nickname "Medusa Flower." The petals often extend and twist dramatically, creating an eye-catching appearance. The tips of the petals become narrowed and elongated, forming a twisting, sticky string that dangles down from the flower and touches lower leaves.
• 🐙 The flowers are brightly colored, often in shades of white, yellow, and red, which can attract pollinators and add to their striking visual appeal.
• 🐙 As suggested by another common name "Poison Arrow Vine," parts of the plant contain toxic compounds. Historically, the seeds were used by some African tribes to poison the tips of arrows for hunting. This gives the plant a certain mystique...
• 🐙 Interesting pollination mechanism: the elaborate design of the flowers is not just for show; it plays a role in the plant's pollination strategy. The intricate structure can help ensure that pollinators come into contact with the reproductive parts of the flower, thereby facilitating cross-pollination.
• 🐙 Blooms almost year around

❓ What bizarre plants do you have in your collection? Share in comments👇

🛒 Order Medusa Flower

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🍳 Fragrant Fried Eggs for bees and butterflies 🐝

• 🟡 Oncoba spinosa - Fried egg tree - is a conversation piece in your garden.
• 🟡 A medium shrub or small tree.
• 🟡 Beautiful white and yellow camellia-like flowers look like 'fried eggs' when they drop off and fall on the ground with their yellow stamens facing upwards.
• 🟡 Flowers are honey-sweet fragrant and attract butterflies and bees.
• 🟡 The fruits have a sour, edible pulp.

🛒 Get a Fried egg tree

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⬆️ The number one seller of tropical flowering shrubs: Tropical Rose Hydrangea.

• 🌸 Dombeya seminole - Tropical Rose Hydrangea is one of the showiest landscape plants and a real showstopper
• 🌸 Known as the tropical hydrangea due to similar flowers. Flowers are pink to rose in color.
• 🌸 Blooms from fall to spring. Blooms all winter, providing much-desired color
• 🌸 Grows up to 7 feet tall and about the same in width. Can be pruned to about 5 feet tall. Does well in a container.
• 🌸 Thrives in full sun to partial shade, tolerates poor soil. Fuller shrub and more flowers with more sun.

Fairly drought-tolerant once established.
• 🌸 Serves as a nectar plant for many butterflies

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