Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

Plant for birds: feast for wildlife and people from a tiny vine!

Passiflora suberosa - Corkystem Passion Vine

Plant for birds: feast for wildlife and people from a tiny vine!

Passiflora suberosa - Corkystem Passion Flower: did you know this Florida native passion vine is more than just a butterfly host? Birds love it too - they’ll happily snack on the little fruits and sing you thank-you songs all day long!
And yes, the fruit is edible for people as well! The berries are small, but they make a fun and exotic treat.
The plants has a tiny flower and a tiny fruit – both only about half an inch – but together they create a mighty native habitat.
It's a triple win: butterflies, birds, and people can all enjoy something from this charming little plant. Plus, it’s the larval host for Gulf Fritillary, Zebra Longwing, and Julia butterflies, and its tiny greenish flowers provide nectar all year long. Fast-growing, easy, and full of life – a real gem for any Florida garden.
This vine is delicate and compact, perfect for a medium trellis or climbing a small tree. Unlike the big, aggressive passion vines that can cover a whole fence, this one stays manageable.
This Passion vine is not just charming and wildlife-friendly, it’s also tough as nails. Cold hardy and easy to grow, this native vine takes whatever Florida throws at it – heavy rains, long droughts and heat, poor sandy soils, even total neglect – and still thrives. A perfect choice if you want beauty, wildlife, and resilience all in one little plant.

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James Coconuts managing Shipping Department at TopTropicals

Plants packed in boxes and ready to go

Plant packing conveyer

Mittens is a new Shipping hire

🚚 How do we ship plants?

🚚 How do we ship plants?

📦 More pictures of packing plants for the previous videos:

📸 In the pictures:

🛒 Shop plants online

📚 Learn more:

#How_to

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How do we ship plants, Part 3: it's Christmas - unwrapping is fun?

🚚 How do we ship plants, Part 3: it's Christmas - unwrapping is fun?

📦 In the previous videos (Part 1: prepare the plant and Part 2: packing in the box), we showed you how we ship the plant to you.

How to take care of your mail order plant (potted plant)

When your plant arrives, carefully remove it from the box and water it right away.

▫️Place it in bright light but out of direct sun for the first few days so it can recover from shipping.
▫️Keep the soil evenly moist, not soggy.
▫️After about a week, gradually introduce it to more sun or move it to its permanent spot.
▫️Read detailed instructions.

🌴 How to plant your mail order plant in the ground

▫️Don't put a new plant straight from the box into the ground!
▫️First, pot it up and let it recover and grow strong for a few weeks.
▫️Once it's well established, choose a sunny, well-drained spot outdoors.
▫️Dig a hole twice as wide as the pot, place the plant at the same depth, and backfill with good, rich soil.
▫️Water thoroughly to settle the roots and add mulch around the base, keeping it away from the stem.
▫️Keep watering regularly until the plant takes off.
▫️Read detailed instructions.

🎥 Part 3 shows you how to unpack a plant. Happy Gardening!

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Bo La Lot recipe with Vietnamese pepper Lalot (Piper sarmentosum)

🍴 10-minute recipe Bo La Lot with a leaf you’ve never cooked before!

🌮 Forget boring tacos - this wrap will blow your mind! In Vietnam they call it Bo La Lot - beef wrapped in peppery Lalot leaves.
🌮 It started as grape leaf wraps in the Middle East, but in tropical Asia grapes don’t grow, so people swapped to Lalot. Way more flavor than grape leaves!
🌮 Grilled beef, garlic, onion, lemongrass - all can be tucked into these shiny green leaves. Smoky, juicy, and so good you’ll wonder why you didn't try it sooner! It's better than grape leaf wraps, because it has so much flavor!
🌮 Most large leaf pepper plants will work for this recipe - Vietnamese pepper Lalot (Piper sarmentosum), Betel Leaf (Piper betle), or even large leaves of the traditional Black Pepper plant (Piper nigrum).

🌯 BO LA LOT RECIPE

✔️ Ingredients

· Preheat the grill.
· Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix well.
· Wrap about 2 tablespoons of the mixture into each betel leaf.
· Spear 3 to 4 betel leaf wraps onto a skewer and grill until the meat is thoroughly cooked.
· Be sure to eat immediately.