Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

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What does a dragon taste like? Does Dragon Fruit come from a monster cactus? Learn why you need to grow your own. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

What does a dragon taste like? Does Dragon Fruit come from a monster cactus? Learn why you need to grow your own

What does a dragon taste like? Does Dragon Fruit come from a monster cactus? Learn why you need to grow your own
🐲 What does a dragon taste like? Does Dragon Fruit come from a monster cactus? Learn why you need to grow your own. 🌵

  • 🔴 You may have tried a Dragon fruit from the store l, but do you know how it grows? On a cactus tree!

  • 🔴 Names: varieties of Hylocereus and Selenicereus - these fruit bearing cactus plants are also called Dragon Fruit or Pitaya.

  • 🔴 Commercially grown fruit sold in a grocery store may be tasteless. You need to grow your own good variety to have tasty, sweet, flavorful fruit!

  • 🔴 Dragon fruit comes in many varieties. Colors of flesh differ: white, pink, dark red and even purple. The outside of the fruit can be red/pink or yellow.

  • 🔴 In commercial groves, Pitayas grow like cactus trees, over a strong support - big "umbrella frames" ☂️

  • 🔴 It is an easy plant, with low water needs, takes both sun and semi-shade.

  • 🔴 Our favorite variety is Yellow Dragon Fruit Palora, (Selenicereus megalanthus). It is the sweetest and has the most flavor of all. We shared some recipes earlier.

  • 🔴 Can be grown in container with a wooden trellis. And the flower is beautiful, too!


📚 Learn more about Dragon Fruit
🍹 Recipe: What to do with a Dragon fruit?

🛒Grow your own Tasty Dragon Fruits

#Food_Forest #Recipes #Nature_Wonders #Dragon_Fruit

🏵 TopTropicals

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Top 10 fruit you'll ever need for your health benefits: A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Top 10 fruit youll ever need for your health benefits:

Dragon fruit

Dragon fruit

😼 Top 10 fruit you'll ever need for your health benefits:
#6 Dragon fruit 🐲🌵
  • 🟡Dragon fruit is often used in smoothies, fruit salads, and refreshing drinks.
  • 🟡It is high in fiber, aiding digestion and promoting gut health.
  • 🟡Low in calories and packed with nutrients, it's great for weight management.


📚 More about Dragon fruit from previous posts:

🛒 Plant a Dragon Fruit Cactus Vine

#Food_Forest #Remedies #Dragon_Fruit

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What does Dragon Fruit Flower look like? A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

What does Dragon Fruit Flower look like?

Dragon fruit flowers

🐲 What does Dragon Fruit Flower look like?
  • Dragon fruit flowers are large, bright, and truly eye-catching. They have long, pale petals that spread out like a star, with a creamy white or yellowish center.
  • The flowers open at night, giving them a magical, moonlit vibe, and their size makes them look almost otherworldly.
  • When they bloom, they can be up to a foot wide, and they give off a sweet, subtle fragrance. It's like seeing a flower from a fairy tale!


📚 More about Dragon Fruit from previous posts:

🛒 Plant a Dragon fruit

#Food_Forest #Hedges_with_benefits #Dragon_Fruit

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Do red, white and yellow Dragon fruit taste differently? A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Do red, white and yellow Dragon fruit taste differently?

White Dragon Fruit

White Dragon Fruit

Red Dragon Fruit

Red Dragon Fruit

Yellow Dragon Fruit

Yellow Dragon Fruit

⚡️Do red, white and yellow Dragon fruit taste differently?

🐉 White Dragon Fruit is not as common as the red variety and has a slightly sweeter taste. The sweetest one, however, is the yellow variety.

#Fun_Facts #Food_Forest #Dragon_Fruit

🏵 TopTropicals

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How to add color to your yard. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

How to add color to your yard

🌈 How to add color to your yard.

  • 🔜 Lovely Cassias we mentioned in earlier post are in full bloom today - they love the Summer Heat! They are our favorite Summer flowers.

  • 🔜 Cassia (Senna) trees are compact, fast growing, tolerant to drought and poor soils, free-flowering and relatively cold hardy. Always a great choice!

  • 🔜 Cassias come in several colors: yellow, orange, pink, red and rainbow.

  • 🔜 Yellow-flowering cassias:

  • Senna surattensis (Cassia glauca) - Scrambled Egg Bush
    Cassia siamea - Kassod Tree
    Cassia didymobotrya - Popcorn Cassia
    Senna alata - Empress Candles
    Cassia occidentalis - Fedegoso, Coffee Senna

  • 🔜 Pink/red and multi-color 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.

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

🛒 Shop showy Cassia trees

#Butterfly_Plants #Trees

🏵 TopTropicals

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What is the best flowering shrub for a shady spot? A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

What is the best flowering shrub for a shady spot?

Aphelandra hartwegiana - Yellow Aphelandra

Aphelandra hartwegiana - Yellow Aphelandra

Aphelandra squarrosa - White Zebra Plant

Aphelandra squarrosa - White Zebra Plant

Aphelandra sinclairiana - Panama Queen

Aphelandra sinclairiana - Panama Queen

Aphelandra x panamensis - Scarlet Candle

Aphelandra x panamensis - Scarlet Candle

💐 What is the best flowering shrub for a shady spot?
  • 🚩 Aphelandra is hands down one of the best solutions for a shade garden where you want to see more colors. It is a great addition to a collectible tropical butterfly garden, can grow into 4-5" tall bushy specimen. Tolerates both sun and shade.
  • 🚩Aphelandras have beautiful lush foliage and showy, long terminal inflorescences throughout the warm season.
  • 🚩These flowers are loved by hummingbirds.
  • 🚩Aphelandra hartwegiana - Yellow Aphelandra. Yellow flowers emerge out of long orange stalks in the fall time. Pretty and unusual!
  • 🚩Aphelandra squarrosa Dania (Snow White) - White Zebra Plant. It is also one of the best house plants, not only pretty because of its white-veined "Zebra" foliage, but also for the apical inflorescence with its beautiful yellow bracts.
  • 🚩Aphelandra sinclairiana - Panama Queen, has extremely tropical look and fragrant flowers of unusual color combination: orange and pink.
  • 🚩Aphelandra x panamensis - Scarlet Candle - a rare hybrid with bright red flowers


📚 Learn more from previous posts:
Panama Queen
How to grow Zebra in container?

🛒 Shop Aphelandras

#Butterfly_Plants #Hedges_with_benefits #Shade_Garden

🏵 TopTropicals

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Why is it called Blue Butterfly? A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Why is it called Blue Butterfly?

Clerodendrum ugandense - Blue Butterfly

Clerodendrum ugandense - Blue Butterfly

Clerodendrum ugandense - Blue Butterfly

Clerodendrum ugandense - Blue Butterfly

⚡️ #Fun_Facts: Why is it called Blue Butterfly?

Clerodendrum ugandense (Blue Butterfly): This plant's blue flowers and butterfly-like shape attract butterflies and other pollinators to the garden. So this plant is all about butterflies!

🛒 Order Blue Butterfly Bush

#Butterfly_Plants

🏵 TopTropicals

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What Tree Calliandra brings into your garden? A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

What Tree Calliandra brings into your garden?

Calliandra houstoniana - Tree Calliandra

Calliandra houstoniana - Tree Calliandra

Calliandra houstoniana - Tree Calliandra, flower

Calliandra houstoniana - Tree Calliandra, flower

⚡️ #Fun_Facts: Tree Calliandra

🎉 Calliandra houstoniana - Tree Calliandra - is the only tree form of Powderpuff. It quickly grows into a bushy beautiful tree in just one season, and fluffy pink flowers attract hummingbirds and butterflies year around

🛒 Order

#Trees #Hedges_with_benefits #Butterfly_Plants

🏵 TopTropicals

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How to grow Popcorn with pretty flowers. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

How to grow Popcorn with pretty flowers

Cassia didymobotrya (Popcorn Cassia)

Cassia didymobotrya (Popcorn Cassia)

Cassia didymobotrya (Popcorn Cassia)

Cassia didymobotrya (Popcorn Cassia)

Cassia didymobotrya (Popcorn Cassia)

Cassia didymobotrya (Popcorn Cassia)

Cassia didymobotrya (Popcorn Cassia)

Cassia didymobotrya (Popcorn Cassia)

🍿 How to grow Popcorn with pretty flowers
  • 🌽 Cassia didymobotrya (Popcorn Cassia) is a fun plant! When rubbed, its leaves emit a scent similar to buttered popcorn, hence its name.
  • 🌽 It blooms with beautiful large clusters of sunny yellow flowers.
  • 🌽 Perfect fast growing flowering shrub - ideal for places where you want to see a showy, pretty plant quickly
  • 🌽 Butterfly magnet - one of the favorite flowers for all kinds of butterflies! Everyone who is working on a butterfly garden, plants Popcorn Cassia


🛒 Order Popcorn Cassia

#Butterfly_Plants #Hedges_with_benefits

🏵 TopTropicals

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What is better - Blue or Pink? You need both! A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

What is better - Blue or Pink? You need both!

Blue Butterfly Bush (Clerodendrum ugandense)

Blue Butterfly Bush (Clerodendrum ugandense)

Pink Butterfly Bush (Clerodendrum mastacanthum)

Pink Butterfly Bush (Clerodendrum mastacanthum)

🎀 What is better - Blue or Pink? You need both!

These two varieties of Clerodendrum must go together - Blue Butterfly and Pink Butterfly - perfect combination! The flowers and butterfly-like shape attract butterflies and other pollinators to the garden. So these plants are all about butterflies!

Blue Butterfly Bush that we mentioned earlier, is a popular fast growing showy shrub with bright blue butterfly-like flowers

🎀 Pink Butterfly Bush is very rare new plant in cultivation, is very similar to more common Blue variety but has pink flowers.

🛒 Order Butterfly Bushes

#Butterfly_Plants

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