Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

Date: 13 May 2022

New Video:
Golden Sugar Apple - Pineapple Annona

In this video we talk about a rare hybrid of Annona - Golden Sugar Apple. This rare Annona is a species originally brought to us from Costa Rica. We believe it to be a natural hybrid between A. muricata and A. glabra...
Fast growing, it forms a nice bushy specimen. It has a large, up to 1 lb fruit, green when unripe, turning dark yellow to orange on ripening. The pulp is golden to orange when ripe, with a strong Pineapple scent, and resembling Jackfruit in texture. Flavor is like the custard apple but with pineapple, papaya, apricot and melon overtones. Note that some people dislike the taste, others find it good... The tree tolerates flooding. It is also cold hardy! The plant would be very interesting for rare fruit collectors as it offers a large, exotic fruit of unusual color and taste, and appears to be much more hardy and water tolerant than similar looking but sensitive A. muricata, A. montana and Rollinia.

Annona  -  Golden  Sugar  Apple  youtube  video

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Date: 12 Jul 2022

The Milkweed and the Monarch, how to raise your own

Monarch  butterfly

by Ed Jones, the Booster Guy

...How to attract butterflies in your garden? What plants do butterflies love? How to grow those plants when butterfly larvae keep eating them?...
Many gardeners ask these questions and butterfly attracting plants always have been very popular. But did you know that you could actually turn your garden into a little butterfly farm?...
Find out from Ed and Juvonda's butterfly mini-farm experience!
CONTINUE READING >

Monarch  butterfly  on  the  hand

See full list of butterfly attractors

Date: 21 Oct 2025

Cassia vs Bauhinia: which is better as an everblooming container tree?

Cassia vs Bauhinia: which is better as an everblooming container tree?

🌈 Cassia vs Bauhinia: which is better as an everblooming container tree?
  • 🌸 Cassia (Senna) trees are very popular flowering trees - fast growing, free-flowering, relatively cold hardy, and they love the summer heat. Cassias come in several colors: yellow, orange, pink, red, and rainbow. Rainbow varieties (which are hybrids between yellow and pink cassias) are the most popular thanks to their multicolor blooms with swirls of yellow, pink, red, and orange. But while Rainbow Cassia is a spectacular flowering tree for southern gardens, is it a good choice for a container when you want color on your patio or pool deck?
  • 🌸 Some yellow-flowering cassias make attractive bushes that bloom most of the year and stay compact, so they can be grown as container specimens:
  • Cassia didymobotrya- Popcorn Cassia
    Senna alata - Empress Candles
    Cassia fistula - Golden Shower (a compact size winter blooming tree)
  • 🌸 When it comes to Rainbow or pink cassias such as Cassia javanica - Apple Blossom Tree or Cassia grandis- Red Cassia and other species and hybrids (Cassia marginata - Rainbow Shower Tree, Cassia roxburghii - Ceylon Senna, Cassia x nodosa - Pink Shower), these are usually more vigorous trees that may take several years to bloom. Their flowering season lasts from a few weeks to a couple of months. These trees grow moderately fast but typically need to reach about 10 feet before they start flowering.
  • 🌸 So, the answer is: if you want rich, deep color year-round from a container tree, go with Bauhinias - Orchid Trees. Most varieties grow well in pots, stay compact, and reach blooming maturity within just one season. The following varieties are everblooming and can produce flowers for up to 10 months of the year:

  • Bauhinia madagascariensis - Red Dwarf Orchid Tree. Blooms from winter through fall, up to 10 months a year. The most cold-hardy of all.
  • Bauhinia blakeana - Hong Kong Orchid Tree. A large tree in the ground, but compact in pots if trimmed. Grafted trees flower right away. Winter bloomer, cold hardy to light frost.
  • Bauhinia tomentosa - Yellow Orchid Tree. Flowers from Winter through Summer, cold hardy to light frost.
  • Bauhiniamonandra - Napoleon's Plume Orchid Tree. Almost everblooming with the longest flowering period (less cold hardy than the first three).
  • Bauhinia acuminata - Dwarf White Orchid Tree. Blooms from summer through winter (also less cold hardy than the first three).


🛒 Explore Cassia trees and Bauhinias (Orchid Trees)

📚 Learn more:


#Container_Garden #Trees #How_to

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Date: 10 Oct 2025

Surinam cherry salsa: quick-n-fun exotic recipes

Surinam cherry salsa

Surinam cherry salsa

🍴 Surinam cherry salsa: quick-n-fun exotic recipes

  • 🔴Dice Surinam cherries (Eugenia uniflora) with red onion, cilantro, and lime 🍒🔴
Sweet, tart, and perfect for grilled fish 🐟

Surinam Cherry Salsa:

Ingredients

  • 1 cup diced Surinam cherries (Eugenia uniflora)
  • 1/4 cup chopped red onion
  • 2 tbsp chopped cilantro
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • Salt to taste

Instructions

  1. Remove seeds and dice Surinam cherries.
  2. Mix with onion, cilantro, and lime juice.
  3. Add salt to taste and stir gently.
  4. Serve chilled with grilled fish or chips.

🛒 Plant Surinam Cherry: Red and Black (Lolita)

#Food_Forest #Recipes

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Date: 31 Oct 2025

👻 When plants grow wings...

Smokey  the  black-and-white  tuxedo  cat  stands  upright  holding  a  glowing 
 jack-o'-lantern  filled  with  tropical  fruit,  while  Sunshine  the  fluffy  ginger
    tabby 
 lounges  in  a  hammock  under  string  lights,  sipping  cocoa.  Around  them  are 
 pumpkins,  lanterns,  and  tropical  plants  under  a  warm  twilight  sky.

🌴 Twilight in the garden. Smokey is holding a glowing pumpkin. Sunshine is sipping cocoa.

Sunshine: "Smokey, why does that plant look like it wants to fly away?"
Smokey: "That’s the Bat Lily - Tacca. It’s rare, it’s weird, and it’s in bloom just in time for Halloween."
Sunshine: "Figures. You always find the spooky ones."

Meet the Bat Lily (Tacca)

Tacca is also called the Bat Lily or Devil Flower. This tropical wonder grows bat-shaped wings and foot-long whiskers. The black form (Tacca chantrieri) looks straight out of a gothic dream, while the white one (Tacca nivea) is ghost-like and elegant.

Some of our plants are blooming right now in the nursery — true Halloween magic! Blooms are delicate and may not travel, but the plants are strong and will flower again soon in your care.

Black  Bat  Lily  (Tacca  chantrieri)  plants  in  bloom  inside  the  Top 
 Tropicals  greenhouse,  showing  dark  maroon  bracts  and  long  pale  whiskers 
 rising  above  large  green 
 leaves.

Black Bat Lily (Tacca chantrieri) with dark maroon wings and long whiskers

Close-up  of  White  Bat  Lily  (Tacca  nivea)  plants  in  a  greenhouse  at  Top 
 Tropicals,  showing  large  white  bracts  and  long  trailing  whiskers  above 
 glossy  green 
 leaves.

White Bat Lily (Tacca nivea) in bloom with wide ivory wings

"The White Bat Lily (Tacca nivea) is bold and sculptural, with oversized ivory wings that command attention. Its pale bracts stretch wide above clusters of deep maroon flowers, and long, silvery whiskers spill gracefully through the foliage. In filtered light, the plant seems to glow from within — elegant, crisp, and perfectly balanced between the strange and the beautiful. If I could pick, I’d go with the White Tacca. It feels more architectural, more balanced — those oversized wings catch light in a way that shows off every vein and curve. It looks engineered by nature, almost like an alien design prototype that actually works.

The Black Bat Lily (Tacca chantrieri) feels alive with shadow. Its dark maroon wings and wiry whiskers make it look like something that fluttered out of the jungle at dusk. The bloom’s layered structure and near-black sheen give it a quiet power — mysterious, understated, but impossible to ignore. But if I were designing mood lighting for a greenhouse at night, the Black Tacca wins. It’s subtle, mysterious, like a secret only visible up close. Together, they’re perfect opposites — yin and yang of the tropical underworld: white for daylight, black for moonlight." — says Tatiana Anderson, Top Tropicals Plant Expert

Special Offer: Discounts on Rare Tacca Plants

Grow your own Bat Lilies — White or Black — at a special Halloween price!

Get 25% OFF Tacca plants with code

TACCA2025

Min order $25 (excluding S/H), valid online only, cannot be combined with other offers.

Hurry, offer expires November 03, 2025!

🎃 Storewide Halloween Sale – For Everything Beyond Tacca

Not into spooky plants? Enjoy savings on all other tropical plants across the store!

Get 15% OFF tropical plants with code

HALLOWEEN2025

Min order $100 (excluding S/H), valid online only, cannot be combined with other offers.

Hurry, offer expires November 03 2025!

👉 Collect Tacca plants:

Black - Tacca chantrieri

White - Tacca nivea

Green - Tacca leontopetaloides