Garden Blog - Top Tropicals
Date: 29 Oct 2026
Two Cats, Two Philosophies, One Garden
Smokey: Is it contagious?
Sunshine: Millions of people will watch me dance!
Smokey: Then humanity is in serious trouble.
It's barely light out. Smokey has already checked the overnight low, answered six emails, and found seven things to worry about. Sunshine has decided to film a dance video. He's wearing the parrot pants, the phone is on a selfie stick, and he's not taking requests. Smokey watches over his glasses, the way you'd watch a sprinkler watering the driveway. Then he goes back to work, because somebody has to.
If you've read our newsletters, you know these two. They argue about everything, but somehow it always comes back to donuts. We wouldn't trade either one.
The Engineer and the Dreamer
Smokey believes nature isn't impressed by good intentions. He knows the fastest way to lose an Adenium (Desert Rose) is a cold, wet pot, and he checks drainage holes like a building inspector. He knows a Dwarf Golden Tabebuia wants the sunniest spot in the yard and will sulk anywhere else. He keeps notes. The notes have notes.
Sunshine keeps no notes, but he has never missed a bloom. He's the one who comes running in to announce that the Desert Rose is open, or that the Heliconia is unfolding its red-and-yellow bracts one boat at a time, like something designed by a committee of parrots. Smokey points out that Sunshine's pants were also designed by a committee of parrots. Sunshine takes this as a compliment.
When the Dwarf Golden Tabebuia turns solid yellow, Sunshine drags a chair out in front of it. Smokey moves the chair because it's blocking the hose. Sunshine moves it back. This can take most of a morning.
Our Small World
Smokey: Probably someone we will never meet. A tree like this takes years.
Sunshine: Good. Then we plant it for them today, and someday they can sit there and eat a donut for us.
Smokey: That is the first long-term plan you have ever made, and it still ends in a donut.
The news is rarely cheerful, and very little of it can be fixed from a nursery in Florida. What does get fixed here is dinner. Over the years we've taken in quite a few abandoned cats, mostly because a hungry cat at the edge of a parking lot doesn't wait for the rest of the world to sort itself out.
Feeding that cat will not change history. It does change the evening for the cat, which, from where the cat sits, is the part that matters.
Every evening Sunshine heads out with the bowls, humming something that isn't quite a song. Smokey follows with the food bag and a list of who has eaten. The cats have never once looked at the list. They have, however, memorized the sound of the bag.
They also find time to plant a tree now and then.
🍩 The Philosophy of the Donut
Smokey has a list. There's a cold front next week, a shipment on Tuesday, and a bench of seedlings that needs repotting. The list grows faster than he can cross things off, and he has a theory that once it's done, he'll relax.
Sunshine has noticed that the list is never finished. Nobody has ever finished a garden. The day you pull the last weed, three more are already germinating behind you, and the plant you just repotted is quietly planning to outgrow its new pot.
So Sunshine has brought donuts. The Desert Rose is blooming and a rescued kitten is asleep under the potting bench. Smokey's list can survive ten minutes. He checks afterward, just to be sure. It survived.
Sunshine calls this the Philosophy of the Donut. Smokey says the theory has never passed peer review. Sunshine points out that Smokey has eaten half the evidence.
Why We Need Them Both
Left alone, Smokey would keep everything alive and never once sit down to look at it. Sunshine would have a wonderful month, followed by a greenhouse full of very dry plants and a very confused cat. Together they manage fine, although they still haven't settled the chair.
A Little More Sunshine for Your Garden
Golden Penda (Xanthostemon chrysanthus). Big, fluffy golden flowers with a sweet scent that reminds many people of apple blossoms. Sunshine approves of both.
Sunshine shops for plants by walking the rows until something makes him stop. Smokey asks how big it gets and what it thinks of frost. Lately, though, Sunshine has been pausing for a reason that has nothing to do with color.
🌸 Stop to smell the flowers!
You usually notice a fragrant plant before you see it. You're walking past with the hose when the air suddenly turns sweet. You stop, look around, and try to figure out where it's coming from.
Sunshine does this several times a day. In the evening, Angel's Trumpet (Brugmansia) releases more of its fragrance. After dark, Night-blooming Jasmine and Parijat take their turn. Sunshine has been known to interrupt an important conversation because something wonderful is blooming twenty feet away.
At the Plumeria, he stops completely and closes his eyes. Smokey says this is how deliveries get missed.
Then there are Champaka, Jasmine Sambac, and Ylang-Ylang. Sunshine moves from one to another, sniffing flowers with the concentration of a professional perfumer. Smokey asks whether he's discovered anything useful. Sunshine says yes, but further research is required.
Ylang-Ylang, incidentally, is one of the notes in Chanel No. 5. Sunshine now tells visitors he wears it.
Some of the best things in a garden can't be photographed.
We tried anyway. The Water Jasmine above looks lovely, but the picture leaves out the best part. The same goes for Climbing Ylang-Ylang, Hiptage, French Jasmine, and Cashmere Bouquet. Smokey has a page of growing notes on each one. Sunshine has smelled every one of them. Sunshine finished first.
Until Next Time
Thank you for reading, and for sharing our interest in plants, animals, gardening, and the occasional ridiculous conversation between two cats. Tell us which one you are: Smokey, Sunshine, or, like most of us, some mix of the two.
Smokey has already started next month's list. Sunshine has already found three things blooming that aren't on it.