Garden Blog - Top Tropicals
The sunny show-off hummingbirds love
Caesalpinia mexicana - Mexican Bird of Paradise
- 🌞 Caesalpinia mexicana - Mexican Bird of Paradise - the sunny show-off you didn't know you needed. Many gardeners have popular and more common common Bird of Paradise Caesalpinia pulcherrima, with red flowers, but this one is rare in gardens.
- 🌞 While most Bird of Paradise plants rely on looks alone, this one ups the game with fragrant blooms. From spring through summer, it's covered in butter-yellow flowers that stand out against soft, feathery foliage. Hummingbirds love it, and when the blooms fade, it makes woody seed pods that snap open like nature's fireworks.
- 🌞 It's native to northern Mexico, which means it handles heat, sun, and dry conditions without a fuss. You can grow it as a compact shrub or let it stretch into a small tree. Either way, it’s easygoing, low-maintenance, and beautiful all season.
🛒 Attract hummingbirds to your garden
#Hedges_with_benefits #Butterfly_Plants
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Breakfast of Champions
"Der Mensch ist, was er isst" - "Man is what he eats." - Ludwig Feuerbach, German philosopher, 1850
🐶📸 Sunshine and Mango, Top Tropicals Labradors, and their Papaya Tasting Table at Bfarm and PeopleCats.Garden.
🛒 Explore Papaya varieties
#PeopleCats #Quotes
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Variegated Chaya - beauty meets nutrition
Cnidoscolus aconitifolius variegatus - Variegated Chaya, Maya Spinach Tree
- 🌿 Variegated Chaya - Variegated Maya Spinach Tree or Cnidoscolus aconitifolius variegatus - is a showstopper in the edible garden. Its heavily cut, creamy-white variegated leaves look like they belong in a tropical ornamental bed, but this beauty is also a powerhouse leafy green.
- 🌿 Native to the Yucatan Peninsula, Chaya has been a traditional food for centuries. Younger leaves (and a little stem) are cooked like spinach, simmered for at least 5-15 minutes to neutralize toxins, then served with butter, oil, or in soups. Once cooked, they’re loaded with protein, calcium, iron, and vitamins A and C - a true garden superfood.
- 🌿 Fast-growing and low-maintenance, Chaya can reach 6-8 feet and thrives in full sun or partial shade. It's drought-tolerant, attracts butterflies and hummingbirds with its white flowers, and grows easily from cuttings. Perfect for food forests, permaculture gardens, or anyone wanting beauty and function in one plant.
🛒 Plant it, cook it, love it
📚 Learn more:
- ▫️Bright, bold, and edible: Variegated Chaya
- ▫️Chaya's health benefits: a must-have tropical leafy vegetable for sustainable gardening
#Food_Forest #Remedies
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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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Bauhinia Care Tips