Date: 29 Nov 2018
Featured Plant. Calathea x roseopicta Dottie - Prayer Plant
Calathea x roseopicta Dottie - Prayer Plant
Rare hybrid of Calathea - Dottie - is a wonderful, colorful small plant that will brighten your shade garden or indoor plant collection. It has vivid pink markings with an entire and wavy margin. The leaf surfaces are colored very dark black-green and its midrib beautifully marked with a distinctive bright pink that also encircles the leaf about 0.5-1" from the margin. These beautiful markings remain vivid pink even as the plant matures. Newly emerged leaves are slightly lighter in color. Leaves underside is purple. Dottie has the characteristic feature of folding up their leaves at dusk to dawn by means of the tiny geniculum, an angular knee-like joint connecting it to the petiole, resembling hands put together in prayer, hence the other common name, Prayer Plant. And, in the morning the leaves will return to normal position, that is, almost perpendicular to the petioles. The plant does occasionally produce purple and white flowers. Perfect small accent plant for shade tropical gardens or as a houseplant.
See all exotic varieties of Calatheas from our store...
Date: 14 Nov 2018
Recovering Soursop after shipping and cold
From Irene &
Marjorie, PA: We wanted to share our pics with you (after Summer). I
attached also the photo of the way the tree looked before your advice (back in
April). The big is the one we almost lost and you gave us these instructions and
it came back. These were your instructions:
"The soursop is one of my favorite fruits and I was so sad to hear
yours may be dead. Good news - the tree looks great! Yes, it does have some cold
damage but I'm surprised it still has leaves on it at all! In cooler weather,
they typically drop all of their leaves and stay that way until spring. You
can remove the damaged leaves and it will resprout new growth with the warmer
temperatures."
Taking care of
Soursop after shipping
Soursop - Annona muricata trees are very sensitive to temperature drops. This
always causes leaf loss. After shipping, do not water until the soil gets
slightly dry; keep it in bright shade. No fertilizer until the plant shows active
new growth. Be patient with your plant, and it should recover soon.
Soursop is an ultra-tropical tree and doesn't take any freeze. If you
live in a cooler climate, keep the plant in a pot (the good news is, Annonas,
in general, have a compact nature and are perfect for container culture).
Bring the tree indoors during the cold period, providing bright light.
We have a very interesting article about growing and fruiting Soursop
in an apartment. Check out 4534 Tropical Treasures Magazine # 7
Date: 2 Nov 2018
Happy Hobby: growing tropicals from seeds
Q: What is the best time to start tropical plants from seeds? Should I wait till spring?
A: If you
want to feel happier, get into gardening. If you want to feel God, start
plants from seeds and watch New Life grow from a tiny grain. Fall is a perfect
time to start tropicals from seed.
Traditionally, people prefer sowing seeds in Spring, especially
temperate species for a vegetable garden: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers... My
grandmother up North started them in early Spring in paper cups on a windowsill,
then once the temperatures went just above freezing, she planted them out in the
garden beds, and that early start always helped her to have the best early
crop in the neighborhood.
When we deal with tropical plants, "just above freezing" is not warm
enough. Which means you have to grow small babies indoors for quite a while,
providing additional heating when needed. Heating pads always work best. If you
keep your living space around 75F (ideal for many species), this is a
perfect temperature to get your seeds started. Tropical plants are not like annual
tomatoes that try to grow through the season as fast as possible. They take
time. So the sooner you start, the more chances to get small seedlings just in
time when Spring air outside is "warm enough" for those tropicals - at least
in 70's.
A great advantage of starting tropical seeds indoors is controlled
temperature and moisture. In the plant world, environment extremes are not good
for the germination process. Mild conditions of your home or a greenhouse
create better chances for successful growth. Seeds won't get overheated in the
hot Summer sun, and won't rot because of a sudden heavy rain. Just keep in mind
that some species require light for good germination.
For the best seed germination:
- Use only well-drained mix - we recommend special Seed Germination Mix #3, professional grade. Put seeds not too deep
(1/2 inch deep or less) to allow air circulation
- Soak large seeds for a few hours with Sunshine-S solution
- Keep warm (75-85F) and in bright light
- Keep soil slightly moist but not soggy
- Apply micro-element booster SuperFood
Date: 1 Oct 2018
Information on new exotic fruit
variety:
Artocarpus x integer (Jackfruit x Chempedak), Cheena cv.
TopTropicals
FRESH SEEDS! Grow exotic Chempedak from seeds and you will have the trees for only $1 each!
Check out a short video of the opened fruit.
Cheena is a natural hybrid between jackfruit and
chempedak. Comes true from seed.
This highly recommended variety has grown in TopTropicals
garden from a seedling of Cheena (Jackfruit x Chempedak)
that fruited within 3 years from planting. The fruit
(20-25"size) is probably the best we ever tasted! It is
super sweet, crunchy and has a rich, pleasant, excellent
flavor. It has very little latex which makes it easy to
handle when cutting up. The tree produces at the very base
of the trunk, so you can prune it as short as you want.
Our tree survived light frosts as well as 48 hours of 3ft
flooding, with no damage!
The tree has an open, low and spreading growth habit and
can be maintained at a height and spread of 8 ft with
annual pruning. It is very easy to grow and is not as cold
hardy as we thought for a Jackfruit x Chempedak types of
plants. The only two recommendations are - good fertilу
soil with a high content of compost and regular watering.
Cheena is a consistent producer. The fruit is up to 5 lbs,
long, narrow and uniform in size and shape. The skin is
green, with blunt spines that yellow and open slightly
upon maturity.
Check out Chempedak Cheena seeds - FRESH - FRESH -
FRESH
Check out Chempedak Cheena plants - special
offer $30 OFF!
Date: 25 Sep 2018
How to get Passion Vine to flower?
From Mark Hooten, the Garden Whiz
Q: Several months ago, I purchased a passionflower vine, a red one with lots of flowers. I ended up putting it in a much larger pot with a large trellis, using a popularly advertised bagged potting soil recommended at a big box store. I have given it a blue colored water-soluble fertilizer every couple of weeks as recommended. However, while the vine seems very happy, growing faster than i can keep winding it around the trellis, it has not flowered all summer. I there something I am doing wrong?
A:
Passionvines as a group (and there are some 500 different kinds!) are sort-of
unusual among popularly grown ornamentals because they have "nitrogen issues". This
is because, even though unrelated, they are much like most legumes, as they
maintain a symbiotic relationship with certain beneficial soil bacteria which
allows them to gather atmospheric nitrogen and store it in their roots. When
they have an overabundance of nitrogen, they simply stop flowering and
produce rampant leafy growth while never flowering. They only flower well after a
period of healthy vine growth, because the plant had finally used up all of
its stored nitrogen.
Since you had both used a bagged potting soil which likely already
contained fertilizer with nitrogen added, as well as bi-monthly doses of a liquid
fertilizer which also contains nitrogen, it has been receiving so much
nitrogen it only knows to grow more vineage until the nitrogen is used up. If and
when that happens, it will again begin to flower. This rule applies of course
not only to flowering but also to fruiting varieties of Passiflora: the more
flowers, the more fruit you get!
So the answer is - for the time being, just stop giving it supplemental
fertilizer and it will start flowering for you sooner than later!