Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

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We've SLASHED shipping costs!

Cat shipping plants in a cart

In this world of ever rising prices, we've managed to slash our shipping costs to you by up to 50% in certain locations!

As prices have continued to skyrocket over the last 3-4 years, we are all feeling the pinch. At Top Tropicals we've done our very best to keep our plant prices steady and have even reduced some prices! But we don't control shipping costs and fuel surcharges and we have felt your frustration in trying to get our plants to you at reasonable shipping rates.

We've spent the last months working with our packaging and shipping suppliers and partners and have managed to slash your shipping costs by up to 50% depending on your location, on top of existing discounts and shipping specials.

You will see this shipping discount in your cart!

And remember these shipping discounts can be combined with all our plant discounts to add up to incredible savings for you!

If you haven't shopped with us for a while, we encourage you to check out our store and see for yourself the savings we now offer! Welcome back!

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Fun Facts: Cacao beans. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Fun Facts: Cacao beans

Cacao Chocolate Tree (Theobroma cacao)

Cacao Chocolate Tree (Theobroma cacao)

Cacao Chocolate Tree (Theobroma cacao)

Cacao Chocolate Tree (Theobroma cacao)

Cacao Chocolate Tree (Theobroma cacao)

Cacao Chocolate Tree (Theobroma cacao)

Cacao Chocolate Tree (Theobroma cacao)

Cacao Chocolate Tree (Theobroma cacao)

📖 Fun Facts: Cacao beans (Theobroma cacao) were used to make chocolate, and the ancient Maya and Aztec civilizations valued cacao beans as currency 💰 Can we use chocolate as money?
  • 🍫 Chocolate tree has large dark green leaves that shade the fruit pods which grow directly from the trunk and branches.
  • 🍫 The flesh of the fruit is eaten as a dessert, and the seeds are the raw material of chocolate. Hot chocolate can be made by drying the seeds, roasting, grinding, and adding milk.
  • 🍫 This exotic rare tree makes a gem of a houseplant collection.


🛒Get your own Chocolate Tree

#Fun_Facts #Food_Forest

JOIN 👉 @TopTropicals

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Mark your calendars: March 1, 2025

March 1, 2025 - SATURDAY - Spring Plant 
Market

Spring into Green at Our Spring Plant Market!
Saturday, March 1, 9 am - 4 pm

Save the date for March 1, 2025, and join us for a vibrant celebration of nature! Bring your friends and family to explore a tropical oasis where our friendly PeopleCats are ready to help you find the perfect plants to brighten your space.

Celebrate the season of renewal and let your garden flourish with new life. We can't wait to see you there and share in the joy of spring!

Highlights of the event:

30% OFF online prices, one day only! (excluding 15 gallon material and rare plants)
Exciting raffle prizes
Special discounts on selected plants
Complimentary gift bags for the first 25 ccustomers with an order $50+ Free plant with any purchase as a token of our appreciation
Life Music: the Famous

Event discounts valid at both locations:

Ft Myers Garden Center: 13890 Orange River, Ft Myers, FL
Sebring B-Farm: 9100 McRoy Rd, Sebring, FL

Plant Market

Holiday Plant Market Cat

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March 1, 2025 - SATURDAY - Spring Plant Market. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

March 1, 2025 - SATURDAY - Spring Plant Market

March 1, 2025 - SATURDAY - Spring Plant Market
🛍 March 1, 2025 - SATURDAY - Spring Plant Market

🟢 Spring into Green at Our Spring Plant Market! Join us today, March 1, for a vibrant celebration of nature!

Bring your friends and family to explore a tropical oasis where our friendly #PeopleCats are ready to help you find the perfect plants to brighten your space.

🗓 Highlights of the event include:

- 30% OFF online prices (*excluding 15 gallon material and rare plants)
- Exciting raffle prizes
- Special discounts on selected plants
- Complimentary gift bags for the first 25 ccustomers with an order $50+
- Life Music: the Famous Hand Pan Lady! (see her previous performance at Top Tropicals)

🆓 Free plant with any purchase as a token of our appreciation

📍Event discounts and specials valid at both locations:
Ft Myers Garden Center: 13890 Orange River, Ft Myers, FL
Sebring Farm: 9100 McRoy Rd, Sebring, FL

🔴 Join 👉 TopTropicals

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HEALING POWER OF HERBS

The most effective herbs to help you sleep. Tick-tock, tick-tock. Nothing is worse than the feeling of lying awake, unable to sleep as the numbers on the clock edge closer and closer to morning. Perhaps like many others, you toss and turn with your mind racing, playing the events of the day over and over again. Maybe you fall asleep easily, but wake up shortly after and can't get back to sleep for the rest of the night. If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. Fortunately, there are natural alternatives to prescription sleeping pills that are just as effective but are far gentler on the body. The following article by Marilyn Reid takes a closer look at some of the best herbs to help you sleep. Reed more...

Mother's day discounts. Fruit tree is the best gift for your Mother. Take advantage of these generous discounts to make a good present!
15% for orders over $100 (excluding S&H): MOTHERS15
20% for orders over $200 (excluding S&H): MOTHERS20
Can't be combined with any other offers. Not valid for past purchases. Codes are valid through Mother's Day - Sunday, May 8, 2014

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St. Patrick's Day Discounts

STPATRICK15: 15% off coupon (orders over $150 not including S&H. Plus, our usual 5% discount on top of that).

STPATRICK20: 20% off coupon (orders over $250 not including S&H. Plus, our usual 5% discount on top of that).

Enter discount code in shopping cart and click "recalculate".
Valid through end of the day Thursday, March 17, 2016.
Not valid for previously ordered items.

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This Saturday, 12/16:
Holiday Plant Market

Plant Market at Top Tropicals

December 16, 9 am - 4 pm

Escape the ordinary and join us at Top Tropicals for the most anticipated event and the biggest plant sale of the year - the Holiday Plant Market! Immerse yourself in a kaleidoscope of colors as you stroll through a garden bursting with life. Uncover incredible one-day-only deals on tropical treasures...

Highlights of the event include:

30% OFF online price
Special discounts and offers on selected plants
Fruit tree specials: selected varieties as low as $45 Avocado and $60 Mango
Secret Garden: Super savings area 50-70% off
$5 and $10 plants, raffle
Free plant with any purchase as a token of our appreciation

Event discounts valid at both locations:

Ft Myers Garden Center: 13890 Orange River, Ft Myers, FL
Sebring B-Farm: 9100 McRoy Rd, Sebring, FL

Facebook event page - Download invitation

NOTE: CLOSED ON 12/14

Our Garden Center and Farm both will be closed on Thursday Dec 14 for maintenance and preparation for the event.

closed for maintenance

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Project Ian

A letter from a gardener:
"We just want our paradise back!"

PeopleCats Botanical Garden

"...My name is Ian, and I am a 21 y/o Natural Resource Management student at South Dakota State University. In 2006, my family found a small barrier island lush with foliage and virtually untouched by the modern world, and we fell in love. Little Gasparilla Island became a piece of our family and now after 16 years, we still spend months out of each year enjoying the island's natural beauty.
Enter Hurricane Ian.
With the eye of the hurricane traveling directly over the island, many homes and materialistic items were destroyed, but more importantly, the once beautiful "jungle" is now more comparable to a barren desert.
This is where I was hoping to get some help... to restore the beauty of Little Gasparilla. After almost 3 weeks, neither the county nor FEMA has made it out to survey our island. And it is almost as if we feel forgotten. After fending for ourselves for clean-up, I am ready to get to work on landscaping. Plants are my passion and it pains me each day to wake up and see that 90% of our Australian and Norfolk Island Pines are completely gone, along with most foliage and palms.
We just want our paradise back, and many of us will work for it by any means necessary..."

We replied to Ian who suffered from Ian... We are willing to help his beautiful island, as well as everyone who is looking for help restoring our Florida beauty. Check out our deals and re-leaf discounts we send in our Newsletters. Remember to attend our Garden Festival on Nov 19, with some big discounts as well as free plants for after-Ian re-leaf!

We will make Florida beautiful again.
We will call it Project Ian!

PeopleCats Garden and pond

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Why do the Chinese drink tea? A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Why do the Chinese drink tea?

Why do the Chinese drink tea?
🌱 Why do the Chinese drink tea?

  • 🍃 It actually has to do with the Chinese theory of the five elements - wood, metal, fire, water, and earth:

木 金 火 水 土

  • 🍃 Tea comes from a plant - Camellia sinensis - the Tea Leaf Tree - that is used to make all true teas: green, black, white, and oolong. The Tea Tree contains the element of wood (木) 🌳

  • 🍃 When it's roasted in a cast-iron pan, it gains the element of metal (金)

  • 🍃 Then it's dried over fire, adding the element of fire (火) 🔥

  • 🍃 When it's brewed with boiling water, the element of water enters (水) 💦

  • 🍃 Finally, tea is poured into a clay vessel, symbolizing the element of earth (土) 🍯

  • 🍃 In this way, all five elements - wood, metal, fire, water, and earth - come together in a single cup.

  • 🍃 The plant grows slowly and can thrive in containers or frost-free gardens with sun to semi-shade.


🛒 Grow your own tea

📚Learn more from previous posts:
Tea facts
How to grow your own tea?
Where does the tea come from?
Instructions how to make tea from tea leaves (PDF)

#Food_Forest #Remedies #Fun_facts

🔴 Join 👉 TopTropicals

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True love of Night Blooming Jasmine

By Onika Amell, tropical plant specialist

Q: I live in New Cumberland, West Virginia. I love the smell of Night-Blooming jasmine. Is it possible to grow it in the northern panhandle of West Virginia? Do I have to plant it every year or do I keep it in a pot and take it inside during the winter months?

A: Technically, Night Blooming Jasmine is not a true jasmine (those plants belong to Oleaceae, or Olive family). Night Blooming Jasmine belongs to the Solanaceae family, also known as the Nightshade or "Potato" family of plants. Yes, this sweet fragrant flower called Jasmine for its perfume is related to potatoes and tomatoes!
Night Blooming Jasmine - Cestrum nocturnum - is loved by many gardeners for its beautiful fragrance at night. It is one of the most fragrant tropical evergreen shrubs available. Cascading clusters of tiny, tubular pale yellow to white flowers open at night and release a heavenly fragrance throughout the garden, especially on warm summer evenings. The fragrance is much lighter during the day. Night Blooming Jasmine is grown year-round in zones 9-11. It is at its happiest in a sunny to a partially sunny spot in your garden in well-drained soil but can be grown in cooler climates as a container or greenhouse plant.
You would absolutely be able to enjoy this plant during the warm months in West Virginia, but it will most certainly not survive outside during the winter. You will have to bring it inside. Take it outside again only once you are confident there is no more possibility of frost. When grown indoors, be sure to give it the sunniest, South facing window in your home. When grown in a container, you will need to re-pot it every two to three years so it doesn't become root-bound.
For those who are lucky to live in frost-free areas, in ideal growing conditions outside, it can easily reach 8 feet with a spread of 5 feet. It has a lovely informal look that can soften a more manicured garden. Add organic matter to the planting hole when you plant to enrich the soil around the root ball. Water well in the summer, but allow them to dry out a bit between watering in the winter. Plant this Jasmine near pools, porches, doors, windows, and walkways where its lovely fragrance can be enjoyed. The shrub is also an excellent plant for privacy hedges and screens. When grown as a hedge, plant 3 feet apart.
Trim lightly after a bloom cycle to shape and then do a hard pruning in fall or spring to control the size of this plant. Fertilize 3 times a year - in spring, summer, and autumn - with a good quality granular fertilizer.

Recommended fertilizers:

Pink N Good Daily Plant Food - Flower Booster
Tropical Allure - Smart-Release Booster

Interesting facts:

Night-blooming jasmine is an excellent mosquito repellent. The powerful scent of the flowers attracts moths and bats that feed on mosquitoes and other small insects.
The flowers of the Night Blooming jasmine are widely used in India and other countries of South Asia for perfumery, medicinal applications and in religious ceremonies.

Limited time special offer:
Instant $5 off Night Blooming Jasmine