Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

Date: 21 Dec 2025

Everyone wants Red Jade vine - this is the one that lives! How to grow Red Jade outside the Tropics

❤️‍ Everyone wants Red Jade vine - this is the one that lives! How to grow Red Jade outside the Tropics.

  • 🔥 Camptosema grandiflorum (grandiflora) - Dwarf Red Jade Vine, Cuitelo, or Rooster's Crest - this Brazilian superstar brings cascading chains of bright red blooms.

  • 🔥 Love the stunning, fiery blooms of the famous Red Jade Vine (Mucuna benettii) but live outside the tropics? Its cousin - Dwarf Red Jade Vine - delivers the same jaw-dropping, flame-red flower chains as the famous tropical Red Jade vines - but without the extreme fuss.

  • 🔥 This vine is native to Brazil, where it grows at higher elevations. That is the secret. It is noticeably more cold tolerant than Mucuna benettii and can handle short dips to around 28F with little or no damage. It is also more forgiving with watering and can tolerate brief dry spells once established.

  • 🔥 Bloom time is late fall through winter, exactly when most gardens slow down. The flowers are long, heavy, and hang best from a pergola, arbor, or fence where they can cascade freely. Butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds find it fast.

  • 🔥 Despite the word "dwarf," this is a vigorous vine. It grows quickly, needs strong support, and rewards good care with a massive display. Give it sun to light shade, water when the soil feels slightly dry, avoid soggy roots, and prune after flowering. Mulch helps keep roots cool.

  • 🔥 It can even be grown in a large container with solid support.

  • 🔥 If you have ever wanted the iconic Red Jade look but live in a place with real winters or surprise cold nights - this is the smarter choice.


🛒 Plant the Red Jade Vine that grows outside the Tropics

📚 Learn more:

#Nature_Wonders #Hedges_with_benefits #Butterfly_Plants

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Date: 20 Dec 2025

☃️ Winter is choosing season

Smokey the tuxedo cat plans spring planting on a laptop plant encyclopedia while Sunshine the ginger cat relaxes by a fireplace in a cozy Christmas living room with tropical plants.

Smokey: "December is for planning, not planting."
Sunshine: "Gift card now. Perfect plants later."
Smokey: "You surprise me sometimes. Must be the donuts."

This time of year always feels special to us. The days are shorter, the garden slows down, and we finally have a moment to pause, look at our wish lists, and dream a little about spring.

As gardeners, we know winter is not really planting season. It is choosing season.

It is when ideas take shape. When we think about what we want to grow next, what we want to add, and what we want to do differently when warm days return. That is why, in winter, the best plant gift is not a plant itself. It is the promise of one.

Cold weather and holiday shipping can make winter plant deliveries stressful, especially for tropical plants traveling north. A gift card lets plants wait for the right moment, and lets the gardener enjoy the fun part now: planning, choosing, and imagining.

It also solves something we all know too well. Every gardener is wonderfully different. Some dream of fruit trees, others of flowers, rare collectors, or easy growers. Some plant in containers, some in the ground. Guessing is hard. A gift card lets them choose exactly what fits their garden and their vision.

🎁 Holiday Gift Card Bonus

To make the season a little brighter, we are offering a holiday gift card bonus through 12/31/2025.

When you purchase a gift card, we add 15% extra value. Just add Christmas greeting in gift card message field. For example, a $100 gift card becomes $115 to spend.

The bonus value is not valid with other promotions or discounts. Gift cards cannot be used to purchase other gift cards. Bonus value is added at the time of purchase.

🎁 Get a gift card

Date: 20 Dec 2025

🎄 From our home and garden to yours!

Christmas yard decoration showing a festive holiday train with Santa, a snowman, and gift-filled cars displayed on a front lawn in a warm-climate neighborhood.

Hello friends,

From our home and garden to yours, we wish you a warm and peaceful holiday season. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, as it comes to a close, Kwanzaa, Feliz Navidad, the New Year, or all of the above, we hope your days are filled with light and the promise of what is growing ahead.

Gardening connects us across seasons, cultures, and traditions, and we are grateful to share this journey with you.

Date: 20 Dec 2025

Are your cats ready for Christmas?

🎄 Are your cats ready for Christmas?



🐈‍⬛ How are your cats getting ready for Christmas?

#PeopleCats

🟢 Join 👉 TopTropicals

Date: 20 Dec 2025

Why this tree secured to the ceiling? How cats decorated Christmas tree

🎄 Why this tree secured to the ceiling? How cats decorated Christmas tree

  • 🎄 Are your cats ready for Christmas?

  • 🎄 This year, as every year, the Christmas tree did not decorate itself. Our #PeopleCats handled the job (as always). Supervised heavily. Questionably executed.

  • 🎄 Executive directors: Bob, Cash

    • Quality inspectors: Nicki, Lilimon, James

  • 🎄 Bob personally spent lots of time properly installing the "snow" cover under the tree. Once the ornaments were properly installed and tested, Bob the "Hamas" disappeared into his secret tunnel system behind the "snow covers", patiently waiting for passers by. Moments later - ambush. Nicki never saw it coming.

  • 🎄 The good news: the tree job was well done.

The better news: the tree is still standing - thanks to a strong cable attaching the top of the tree to the ceiling.

🎁 How are your cats getting ready for Christmas?
Happy Holidays and Meow Christmas!

🐈📸 Starring: Christmas Cats of TopTropicals - Bob, Cash, Nicki, Lilimon, James - from PeopleCats.Garden

#PeopleCats

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Date: 20 Dec 2025

Grumichama spoon drizzle: quick-n-fun exotic recipes

Grumichama spoon drizzle: quick-n-fun exotic recipes Grumichama spoon drizzle: quick-n-fun exotic recipes
🍴 Grumichama spoon drizzle: quick-n-fun exotic recipes

  • 🔴 Blend grumichama pulp with a dash of water to loosen.
  • 🔴 Pour over vanilla ice cream for a bright, tangy hit.


🛒 Grow sweet Grumichama - in a pot or in the ground

📚 Learn more:

#Food_Forest #Recipes

🟢 Join 👉 TopTropicals

Date: 19 Dec 2025

Dog refused to play Santa - her reaction says everything

🎅 Dog refused to play Santa - her reaction says everything

🎄 Christmas moment

Mango the Dog really tried to be festive! The Santa hat went on, slipped off, went back on, slipped again...
She sat there looking guilty, like she personally ruined Christmas... We forgave her. Obviously.

🐕 Mango's Christmas story

Mango is a black lab - loving, gentle, and loyal to her core.
One cool November night, she showed up at our gate and stayed there all night, waiting for someone to come back for her. No one did. We tried to find her family with no luck. So Mango stayed with us at TopTropicals with our rescued #PeopleCats.

When we took Mango to the vet for shots, we discovered she was pregnant! Maybe that is why she was left behind?

Right before Christmas, on December 17, 2022, Mango gave us eight beautiful puppies. Some stayed with TopTropicals - Sunshine, Draco, and Lilo - and the others went to close friends. They still come back to visit, and every year we get a full Mango family reunion.

🎁 Sometimes the best gifts show up quietly, wait patiently, and never leave.
Happy Holidays! Hope Santa brings you what you want!

🐈📸 Mango the Dog - the Christmas Dog of TopTropicals PeopleCats.Garden

#PeopleCats

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Date: 19 Dec 2025

Eight best winter blooming trees

💐 Eight best winter blooming trees



🛒 Explore Winter bloomers

#Trees #Discover

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Date: 19 Dec 2025

Ten best shrubs for winter colors

💐 Ten best shrubs for winter colors



🛒 Explore Winter bloomers

#Hedges_with_benefits #Discover

🟢 Join 👉 TopTropicals

Date: 19 Dec 2025

13 festive shrubs with bright flowers that bring color to your Winter Garden when everything else is dormant

13 festive shrubs with bright flowers that bring color to your Winter Garden when everything else is dormant
💐 13 festive shrubs with bright flowers that bring color to your Winter Garden when everything else is dormant

Southern Living points to colorful berries as winter garden standbys. Tropical plants take it a step further, filling the cool season with real flowers, not just fruit. From vivid reds to electric blues, these plants prove winter does not have to be dull.

  • 🌈 1. Gloxinia sylvatica - Bolivian Sunset

    • This plant waits for cool weather, then suddenly lights up the shade with fire-red blooms. Flowers appear almost overnight and continue through fall and winter. It rests in summer, returns in fall, spreads gently, and makes an easy, festive ground cover that is perfect for sharing.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 2. Pereskia aculeata - Barbados gooseberry

    • An unusual vine that surprises in cool weather with delicate, star-shaped blooms followed by tasty fruit. It flowers steadily from fall through winter, adding light, airy color to fences and trellises when most vines are quiet.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 3. Mansoa alliacea - garlic vine

    • Best known for its garlicky scent, this vine really shines in winter. Cooler temperatures bring clusters of lavender-purple flowers that brighten fences and trellises with very little effort.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 4. Dombeya wallichii - tropical hydrangea

    • Large pink pompom blooms hang from bare branches in winter, creating a true holiday look. Lightly fragrant and impossible to miss, it brings hydrangea-style drama to the cool season.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 5. Brunfelsia pauciflora Compacta - dwarf yesterday-today-tomorrow

    • Compact and cheerful, this shrub opens purple flowers that fade to lavender and white. The color shift makes it look like several plants blooming at once, perfect for pots or small garden spaces.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 6. Clerodendrums

    • Long, cascading sprays of white flowers of Clerodendrum minahassae - fountain clerodendrum - spill from the plant during the cooler months. It brightens shaded areas and adds movement when the garden slows down. Most clerodendrums bloom through Winter!

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 7. Tibouchina multiflora - glory bush

    • Soft, fuzzy purple blooms cover this shrub in winter, backed by velvety leaves that look good year-round. It adds strong color and texture during the cool season.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 8. Holmskioldia sanguinea - Chinese hat

    • Bright red, orange or yellow, hat-shaped bracts surround small flowers and hold their color through the cool months. The shape alone makes this shrub a standout in winter.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 9. Barleria cristata - Philippine violet

    • This tough shrub blooms heavily in winter with rich purple flowers. It delivers dependable color when many plants take a break. There is a golden variety too!

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 10. Eranthemum pulchellum - blue sage, lead flower

    • Few plants offer true blue in winter. Electric-blue flower spikes appear in cool weather, adding rare color with minimal care.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 11. Petrea volubilis - queen's wreath

    • In winter, this woody vine erupts into cascading sprays of lavender star-shaped flowers. It creates a wisteria-like effect right when the garden needs it most.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 12. Tabebuia varieties - dwarf golden and dwarf pink

    • These trees save their show for winter, blooming on bare branches. Golden forms glow yellow, while pink varieties cover themselves in soft trumpet-shaped flowers.

👉 Learn more

🌈 13. Bauhinia trees - pink butterfly and Hong Kong orchid trees
Butterfly-shaped blooms open on leafless branches, giving bauhinias their signature winter elegance. The Hong Kong orchid tree stands out with especially large, vivid flowers.

🛒 Explore Winter bloomers

📚 Learn more:

#Hedges_with_benefits #Discover

🟢 Join 👉 TopTropicals
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