Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

Date: 23 Jun 2024

Gardeners finally found a perfect everblooming hedge for shade!

Kings Mantle - Thunbergia erecta

Kings Mantle - Thunbergia erecta purple

Kings Mantle - Thunbergia erecta purple

Kings Mantle - Thunbergia erecta Lavender Lace Variegated

Kings Mantle - Thunbergia erecta Lavender Lace Variegated

Kings Mantle - Thunbergia erecta White

Kings Mantle - Thunbergia erecta White

⚡️ Gardeners finally found a perfect everblooming hedge for shade!
  • 💜 Kings Mantle - Thunbergia erecta - is a perfect flowering bush or hedge for the shady garden.
  • 💜 Ever-blooming: Perfect for a continuously blooming hedge.
  • 💜 Dense shrub: Bushy, fast-growing, and ideal for mixed beds or medium-to-low hedges.
  • 💜 Beautiful flowers: flowers resemble morning glories, with common varieties having rich purple petals and yellow throats.
  • 💜 Attractive foliage: Small, dark green leaves.
  • 💜 Climber relatives: Unlike many Thunbergia species, this one is a sprawling shrub.
  • 💜 Pruning responsive: Can be shaped into a dense hedge, pruning promotes flowering.
  • 💜 Sun or shade: Prefers bright light and well-drained soil, but will also bloom in partial shade.
  • 💜 Colors: comes in dark blue, white, and the unique, vigorous variegated variety - 'Lavender Ice'.


🛒 Shop King's Mantle

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🏵 TopTropicals

Date: 6 Oct 2024

Why is it called Kings Mantle

King's Mantle - Thunbergia erecta

Why is it called King's Mantle
  • ✨ Looking for a hedge that blooms non-stop, even in the shade? King's Mantle - Thunbergia erecta - is ever-blooming superstar is the perfect flowering bush or hedge for those tricky shady spots in your garden.
  • ✨ Unlike its climbing cousins, this Thunbergia prefers to sprawl as a shrub, making it easier to manage.
  • ✨ With its fast-growing, bushy habit, it's ideal for mixed beds or creating a medium-to-low hedge that stays dense and beautiful year-round.
  • ✨ The flowers? Think of morning glories, with stunning purple or white petals and sunny yellow throats. And if you're feeling adventurous, try the 'Lavender Ice' variety with royal, lavender-variegated flowers for a unique twist. The name King's Mantle is well-deserved!
  • ✨Not just a pretty face, King’s Mantle also boasts small, dark green leaves that make the flowers pop even more.
  • ✨ It's a pruning enthusiast's dream - cut it back, and it'll reward you with even more blooms!
  • ✨ Whether you plant it in sun or partial shade, King's Mantle will thrive in well-drained soil, delivering a burst of color all year long.


📚 Learn more from previous post:
Perfect everblooming hedge for shade

🛒 Shop King's Mantle

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Date: 3 Sep 2024

How to have the Blue Sky in just one season and forever

Thunbergia laurifolia - Blue Sky vine, Blue Trumpet Vine, Scrambling sky flower

💙 How to have the Blue Sky in just one season and forever
  • 🔵 Thunbergia laurifolia - Blue Sky vine, Blue Trumpet Vine, Scrambling sky flower - is a super-fast growing climber that will cover your fence in just one season.
  • 🔵 Scrambling sky flower is the most striking blue flowered vine in the world, with a robust and twining habit producing long hanging clusters of 3" sky blue funnel shaped flowers from fall through spring, displayed throughout it's dense deep green foliage.
  • 🔵 White flowering variety is Thunbergia grandiflora Alba.


🛒 Shop Thunbergia vines

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Date: 14 Jul 2025

The fastest vine to cover a fence - everyone asks about it

Thunbergia laurifolia - Blue Sky vine

💙 The fastest vine to cover a fence - everyone asks about it
  • 🔵 If you need a beautiful vine to cover your fence quickly - plant Thunbergia laurifolia, Thunbergia grandiflora - Blue Sky vine, Blue Trumpet Vine, Scrambling sky flower.
  • 🔵 This vigorous tropical climber explodes with 3-inch trumpet-shaped blossoms in a shade of blue so vivid, it looks unreal. In just one season, it can cover a fence, trellis, or arbor with lush green foliage and long cascading chains of flowers.
  • 🔵 Once established, it blooms heavily from fall through spring, creating a waterfall of sky blue that feels cool and soothing even in the heat. It's not just a pretty face either - its fast growth makes it ideal for quickly creating privacy, shade, or a living screen.
  • 🔵 Thrives in heat and humidity, low-maintenance once established
  • 🔵 Dramatic focal point, pollinator magnet, and conversation piece! And if blue isn't your color, the rare white version, Thunbergia grandiflora Alba, offers the same performance in pure ivory tones.


🛒 Get the vine everyone asks about

📚 Learn more:
▫️How to have the Blue Sky in just one season and forever

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Date: 11 Feb 2021

Curious Gardenia graft

Q: I was told to send you pictures of my hybrid gardenia tree. About 6 months ago the new growth on the top of one side became crinkled. It doesn't get straightened out either. It seems like it just stays like that until it falls off. Any ideas?

A: Your plant is not sick at all. This is what happened...
Your gardenia is a grafted variety. Gardenia varieties (Gardenia jasminoides hybrids) are grafted on rootstock of Gardenia thunbergia (this species is nematode-resistant and used for rootstock especially in Florida). The side branch that you call "crinkled" is actually the rootstock (Gardenia thunbergia) growing from UNDER the graft. Gardenia thunbergia has naturally "wavy" leaves.
If you follow this branch to its base, you will see where it starts - right below the graft. This happens very often.
You need to remove this branch altogether, from the point where it starts. It sucks energy from the plant and eventually may take over the whole plant.

Photo above: Gardenia thunbergia with curly leaves

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