Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

Date: 29 Jan 2020

Meet People of TopTropicals. Pea Cock of the Day: the Orchid Guard

Recently we started to reveal the secret about who works behind the scenes on TopTropicals project; you have already met our editors and their assistants: Marina with Tilda, and Alex with Sonya. Today's story is about a Magic Peacock who works in orchid greenhouse of Eleanor Wilks - our photographer and tropical plant journalist in New Zealand and Australia. The watermark EleNZ you see on pictures of Australian flora - is Eleanor's!
Today Eleanor is sharing with us pictures of this amazing bird that helps her around her Orchidarium.
This young Pea Cock showed up one day in her backyard from nowhere and set up his living quarters in a tree. She asked around: no one was missing a peacock... so she took the Pea in and now he is in charge of her orchid collection. After a day of a hard work, Pea comes home to the back porch, waiting for Eleanor to sing him a good-night lullaby. Pea won't go to sleep until everyone in the house is ready for bed and the lights turned off. What a responsible house guard!

Check out and more Cat of the Day stories.

Date: 16 Nov 2019

Meet PeopleCats of TopTropicals. Charlie, the Indoor Hunter

Carlie was a kitty drop off with LadyBug, Rickie, and Purry.
Charlie is Jamie's baby. She has an attitude of a teenager, one minute she loves you and the next - wants nothing to do with you. Carlie stays with the inside PeopleCats, she says it's too big in the outside world for her and she gets scared. Carlie has a fun game (fun to her): she plays around 2:00 am in the morning, she loves to drag random items down the hall (socks, toys, shirts, even blankets) in her mouth MEOOOWWWING as loud as she can. She then sets the items down on her human's bedroom rug and waits for her human to say thank you. We're pretty sure her hunting instinct is off...

Check out and more Cat of the Day stories.

2019, from Top to Bottom: Moe, Charlie, Bagheera, and Snitch. 2016: Charlie

From left to right: Purry, LadyBug, Charlie, and Ricki - 2016

Date: 29 Nov 2020

Cold protection of tropical container plants

Q: I am long time customer of yours, I live in San Diego California and while the summer and Fall temperatures are warm to mild, the winter temperatures dip to a point where some tropicals die off. We are experimenting with different variations of way to heat and insulate the pots we have the tropicals planted in as a way to keep them alive during the colder winter months. I was wondering if you knew of the ideal soil temperature for these tropical in order to look their best year round. All of the heaters we have installed have thermostats and temperature adjustments so we can now keep the soil anywhere between a range of between 65-75 degrees. Any advise you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

A: This is a very interesting concept you are working with. Indeed, keeping pots/roots warm, may help a lot! We've been experimenting with cold protection for a long time - for the above-ground plant parts. For sure keeping roots protected (even with a thick layer of mulch) will benefit tropical plants during winter. In case with container plants, this may help dramatically.
The guideline is, tropical plants slow down or stop their metabolism at 65F. As long as you can keep soil above that temperature - this should work great. Of course, the higher the better.
Optimum temperature for growing tropical plants in general - 70-85F. Above 90F, metabolism stops too, unless it's a heat tolerant, desert plant.

More information on winter cold protection of tropical plants and zone pushing:

Greenhouse in Virginia
Plumeria cold protection
Ghost Cold Protection
Seven rules of cold protection for tropicals
About Cold Protection
Cold protection - winter action for your plant collection
Tropical Treasures articles on zone pushing.

Date: 10 Mar 2021

PeopleCats of TopTropicals. Cat of the Month: Sonya growing indoors

Sonya, the Co-Author of our columnist Alex Butova, this year can't wait for the Spring to begin. Sonya is a True Tropical Cat, enjoying sunny hot days, and she hates cold and snow in spite of her beautiful fluffy coat. Together with Alex, she grows tropical flowers in their apartment in Riga, Latvia. The countdown to True Spring has just begun, and Sonya promises warm weather to start by hers and Alex's birthday on March 16.
Aren't we lucky to live in Tropics!

TopTropicals PeopleCat Club and Zoo

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Make your kind donation today and receive a surprise gift from us! Every little bit helps. Thank you and God bless you and your pets!

Date: 19 Jul 2020

PeopleCats of the World. Cat of The Day: Sabake from the Cat Cafe

We continue inviting PeopleCats of the World to our Blog. Today's cat of the day is visiting us from Cat Cafe Nurri from Tallinn, Estonia - Nurri Kassikohvik (Nurri means Purr!). Our columnist Alex Butova has visited enchanting Nurri Cafe especially for this report!
This amazing cat project is supported by donations, cat gift shop, as well as order surcharge - $6.50 per customer. Nurri Cafe is a foster home for cats rescued from different troubles. Some of these cats eventually find their forever homes when adopted by the customers. But some have become Nurri's family members, the cafe is their permanent home, and of course - place of work.
One of such permanent residents is a fluffy beautiful Sabake (BTW "sabaka" in Russian means "dog"... well, it is what it is!)
Sabake's main responsibility is checking out customers at the cash register. She also advertises souvenirs and offers to sign the Guestbook - which is she uses as a napping mat.
Sabake is very proud of her beautiful, long, thick fur. Cafe employees have a daily task of grooming her fur coat which is quite a job!
In May 2020, during the world's shut-down, the MAOW Academy hosted a webinar from this cafe: "For everyone who cares how the life order of "stay home" worked on cats and how they get used to the "old" life order again."

In the photo: Sabake napping on the Guestbook

TopTropicals PeopleCat Club and Zoo

Thank you for supporting us in helping PeopleCat Community!
Make your kind donation today and receive a surprise gift from us! Every little bit helps. Thank you and God bless you and your pets!

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