Garden Blog - Top Tropicals
If you can potty together, youre in for the long haul!
Cats Lily and Timo
"Those who pee together stay together! If it's number 2 - it may be a rough relationship..." - Jamie McKinnon
🐈📸 Cats Lily and Timo are best friends at Top Tropicals PeopleCats.Garden.
#PeopleCats #Quotes
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Climbing 10 feet for Vanilla Beans!
Vanilla Bean Orchid - Vanilla planifolia
- ⚡️ One of our Vanilla Bean Orchids at TopTropicals has big ambitions - it's already climbed 10 feet up a pine tree! We’re waiting (impatiently!) for those elegant yellow-green flowers, which will hopefully turn into vanilla beans.
- ⚡️ Vanilla Bean Orchid (Vanilla planifolia) is the plant behind that sweet, comforting vanilla flavor we all love. It starts off like any potted orchid, but soon sends out aerial roots and becomes a climber, wrapping itself around trees or trellises. In its natural habitat, it grows high into forest canopies, but in the garden it will happily scale any sturdy support you give it.
- ⚡️ Once established, it flowers and sets the long green pods we call vanilla beans. Growing your own is a lesson in patience - from flower to dried bean can take month - but nothing beats harvesting your own vanilla for the kitchen.
📚 Learn more:
- ▫️How to properly plant Vanilla Orchid
- ▫️How to grow your own vanilla orchid at home
- ▫️The Secret of how to Make Vanilla Orchid bloom
- ▫️The biggest in the world Vanilla dilloniana
📱How to produce your own vanilla: secrets of hand-pollination.
🛒 Climb toward your own beans
#Shade_Garden #Container_garden #Food_Forest
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The sun will rise
Mr B the cat
"Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise." - Victor Hugo
🐈📸 Mr B the cat at sunset at Top Tropicals PeopleCats.Garden.
#PeopleCats #Quotes
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Homegrown coffee - the journey begins
Coffee tree - Coffea arabica
Coffee trees (Coffea arabica) that you saw blooming at Top Tropicals in May with fragrant, gardenia-like flowers, now in August - they are loaded with fruit! We will update on them once they turn red and ripe...
🛒 Start your own coffee harvest
📚 Learn more:
- • How to make your own coffee from homegrown beans
- • Coffee trees in bloom
- • Brew Your Future: Grow Your Own Coffee
- • What is coffee made of?
- • Why Coffee tree is the best gift plant
- • Top 10 fruit you'll ever need for your health benefits: #2. Coffee Tree
- • What is the most popular and the easiest tropical fruit tree grown as a house plant?
- • Video: growing a Coffee tree
#Food_Forest #Container_Garden #Shade_Garden
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Date:
🌸 Orchid Tree - Bauhinia: Winter Blooms & Year-Round Beauty
Sometimes a plant stops you midwalk. Flowers so bright they almost glow, leaves shaped like butterflies — that’s a Bauhinia, the Orchid Tree. These fast growers bring color when many gardens are quiet, with some blooming in the heart of winter.
🌟 Why Grow Bauhinia?
- Exotic blooms in colors from white to deep magenta
- Distinctive leaves — nature’s own butterfly design
- Many varieties flower in the cooler season
- Fast growth, easy shaping, more blooms after pruning
- Varieties for large yards, small gardens, and sunny patios
- Tolerant of heat, drought, and poor soils
Bauhinia Care Tips
🌞 Outdoor
Full sun for best flowering, well-draining soil, deep watering once established. Light pruning after bloom keeps shape and encourages more flowers. Protect young plants from frost. During the growing season (Spring - Fall), apply a balanced fertilizer - like top-dress slow release fertilizer or controlled-release Green Magic. Liquid fertilizer Sunshine Boosters Megaflor can be used year around - to promote vigorous growth and abundant blooms.
🏡 Indoor / Patio
Bright sun (south window or outdoors in warm months), large pot with drainage, even moisture during growth, and a bloom-booster feed in season. Feed regularly with a balanced fertilizer controlled-release Green Magic. Liquid fertilizer Sunshine Boosters Megaflor can be used year around - to promote vigorous growth and abundant blooms. Bring indoors before frost.
🍂 Seasonal Note – Bauhinias are Deciduous
Bauhinias drop their leaves in winter — even in warm climates. This is normal and part of their rest cycle. Bare branches in the cool season will leaf out again in spring, often just as flowers begin.
📝 Quick choice guide
- Winter flowers: Bauhinia alba, Bauhinia blakeana, Bauhinia variegata
- Small space: Bauhinia acuminata, Bauhinia madagascariensis
- Vine option: Bauhinia galpinii for long warm-season color
![How to produce your own vanilla: secrets of hand-pollination.](
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