Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

Date: 9 Nov 2025 Top Tropicals Telegram channel & chat

Edible cactus with health benefits that your tortoise will love too

Opuntia cochenillifera - Velvet Nopal Cactus, Nopales, Prickly Pear, leaves and flower

Opuntia cochenillifera - Velvet Nopal Cactus, Nopales, Prickly Pear, leaves

Opuntia cochenillifera - Velvet Nopal Cactus, Nopales, Prickly Pear, leaves and flowers

Opuntia cochenillifera - Velvet Nopal Cactus, Nopales, Prickly Pear, large plants

🐢 Edible cactus with health benefits that your tortoise will love too

🌵 Opuntia cochenillifera - Velvet Nopal Cactus, Nopales, Prickly Pear - is one of the most useful and forgiving cactus species you can grow. Unlike most desert cacti, this one thrives even in humid tropical climates like Florida, making it one of the few rain-tolerant cacti that actually loves moisture. Fast-growing and ornamental, it produces bright red flowers and makes a beautiful, low-maintenance landscape plant that thrives in heat, drought, and even neglect.
🌵 Prickly Pear is a very valuable edible, used as a vegetable with impressive medicinal properties. The young pads, called nopales, can be stir-fried or sauteed with onions and garlic for a tangy, nutrient-rich side dish.
🌵 In Hispanic cooking, this plant is known simply as Nopal or Nopales – a traditional ingredient used in dishes like ensalada de nopales (nopal salad), nopales con huevo (eggs with cactus), and nopales asados (grilled cactus).
🌵 Regularly eating Nopales has been linked to improved blood sugar control, and many people who include it in their diet report significant help in managing diabetes.
🌵 Nopales is also a favorite treat for tortoises and other herbivorous pets. Its smooth, spineless pads are packed with hydration and nutrients, making it a safe, natural food source.
🌵 So, this is not just a cactus - it’s a food, medicine, and ornament all in one. Tough, beautiful, and endlessly useful!

🛒 Plant your own food and pharmacy Nopales

#Food_Forest #Remedies

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Date: 8 Nov 2025 Top Tropicals Telegram channel & chat

Smile - you are on camera!

Cash the the cat

👀 Smile - you are on camera!

"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." - Wayne Dyer

🐈📸 Cash the the cat looking at things from a different angle at TopTropicals PeopleCats.Garden

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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Date: 8 Nov 2025 Top Tropicals Telegram channel & chat

It smells like bananas but its a magnolia!

Magnolia figo, Banana Magnolia

🍌 It smells like bananas… but it’s a magnolia!

🌸 Magnolia figo, or Banana Magnolia - is in bloom! It is now filling the air with its unbelievably sweet fragrance! Its creamy, cup-shaped flowers smell like fresh bananas mixed with fine perfume - you have to smell it to believe it.
🌸 This compact evergreen shrub grows only about 5-6 ft in a container, making it perfect for small gardens, patios, or even near an entryway where you can enjoy the scent up close. Glossy green leaves, elegant shape, and that irresistible aroma - it’s pure charm in a pot.
🌸 Cold tolerant, heat tolerant, sun or shade - this little magnolia doesn’t ask for much but gives so much back.

🛒 Plant Banana Magnolia

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