Date: 21 Mar 2026
Today: Spring Equinox Plant Festival 🌿
Smokey: Under control. Try not to drop half of them.
Both: Friends, come over today.
Everything is ready for today at our Spring Equinox Plant Festival. The garden is full and we would love to see you. Come over today and enjoy it with us. SEE FULL EVENT DETAILS
Date: 26 Mar 2026
🌈 Adeniums: More Than Just Plants
Smokey: Caudex. Water and nutrient storage for future use.
Sunshine: I need a caudex too. For coffee and my donuts
Smokey: You already have one. Have you looked in the mirror lately?.
Read more about Smokey & Sunshine
🌱 Shape, Color, and Why Each Adenium Feels Unique
Adeniums can stop you in a strange way. It is not only the flowers, although they help. It is the whole plant. The swollen base, the curves, the way no two look quite the same. Some are thick and heavy, some more refined, almost like they were shaped on purpose. After a bit, you stop seeing them as regular plants and start treating them more like objects you want to keep and look at.
That is usually how a collection starts. One plant, then another that feels different, and then you want contrast. Light next to dark, soft next to bold, one with a wide base next to a taller form. It is not really about having many. It is about how they look together. And over time, each one changes a little, so the collection never stays the same.
Date: 25 Feb 2024
Avocado pollinating and crops
Photo above: Avocado Joey - very buttery fruit, cold hardy variety.
Q: I bought an anise leaf-scented avocado from you, and it is finally quite large and doing great. I live in California, the coldest temperatures we seem to get in some winters is around 25 to 28F, and it never lasts long. The tree might get a bit of frost nipping on the new growth, but it has done very well. It has flowered profusely for the last two years but hasn't set any fruit. What variety you might recommend to help with pollinating?
A: We are glad your avocado is doing great. Anise is one of our favorite varieties, with the wonderful smell of leaves and tasty fruit.
Cold hardiness and flower quality
It is true that cold damage may affect avocado production, especially in setting fruit. To improve the tree's cold hardiness, make sure to provide balanced plant food, especially during the season of active growth. For our avocado trees, we use Sunshine C-Cibus year-round.
If you prefer to use dry (granulated, slow-release) fertilizers, make sure they contain micronutrients, or apply Sunshine Superfood microelement complex once a month.
To improve flower quality (including the ability to set fruit), we recommend a special micronutrient supplement called Sunshine Honey. It contains Boron and Molybdenum - elements that are responsible for setting fruit and for developing fruit (meaning not dropping at the early stage of development).
Cross-pollination and crop
In general, every avocado tree is self-fertile, meaning it can produce some fruit with its own pollen and doesn't necessarily require a second tree for pollination. So even if you don't do anything, sooner or later your tree will set fruit. However, it is also true that the amount of fruit and crop reliability depends on pollination factors. One type of avocado classification is by flowering and pollination behavior - type A or B.
When both types of trees are grown in proximity to each other, their overlapping flowering patterns significantly enhance the chances of cross-pollination. This can lead to improved fruit set and higher yield, making it especially important for commercial production and, to a lesser extent, for home growers.
Therefore, it's advisable to plant different varieties of avocado in your garden - the more, the merrier! The greater the diversity of avocado trees with overlapping flowering periods, the better your crop is likely to be. If you're growing an avocado tree without other avocados nearby, it becomes helpful to have more than one tree with different flowering patterns (A and B) to increase yield in your garden.
Anise Avocado is type B. So to increase your crop, you may consider planting type A variety from the list: Bernecker, Black Prince, Catalina, Choquette, Day, Donnie, Fantastic, Florida Hass, Lila, Loretta, Lula, Mexicola, Mexicola Grande, Red Russell, Reed, Russell, Simmonds, Ulala , Waldin .
To learn more about avocado types, fruit characteristics, cold hardiness and much more, refer to our Avocado Variety Guide - a page with very convenient interactive chart allowing you to quickly sort types of avocado by requirements of your choice (just click on column header to sort data). You may also buy a Book or download a PDF.
Photo above: 15 gal Avocado trees for local pick up. Delivery and installation available!
Date: 2 Apr 2022
Cat of the month:
Frosya Yavorsky from Ukraine
Meet Frosya Yavorsky - an anti-war and anti-stress Cat of Alex and Lena Yavorsky. They live in Lviv, Ukraine and contribute their plant photos to Top Tropicals Catalog. Recently they sent us the beautiful Sunflower field photo that everyone can enjoy now at Top Tropicals home page. Frosya's main job today is psychological support of her parents during this cruel times. Top Tropicals recently sent to this family some proceeds of Kristi's Sunflowers sold at Sunday Event Sale. Frosya, please stay healthy and keep your parents calm and strong. You guys are in our thoughts, prayers, and hearts.
Our thoughts and prayers are with Ukraine
Ukraine direct support:
To support Ukraine, please make your purchase of
so-much-needed plant food today: Sunshine
Boosters, developed by our Ukrainian Team.
All profits from Sunshine Boosters sales go to Ukraine.
Your help is needed TODAY.
Photo above: Fedor Shabliy with his family - Oksana and Vova - are about to start planting vegetables in their backyard. Fresh start once the freeze is over... Fedor, the author of the Sunshine Boosters
Date: 8 Sep 2021
Fertilizer and the Fall Garden
by Ed Jones, the Booster Guy
...Well Labor Day has come and gone. Summer is winding down and depending on where you live, thoughts are now turning to pumpkin spice, witches, fall decor and gardening. Wait, did I just say gardening? Yes, if you live in the deep south, and I do, it is time to think about fall gardening and fertilizer. Even those of you in the north can put in a few quick crops now for fall. Think onions, radishes, lettuce and other greens and of course, garlic...
Next month, we can start putting out our plants that do better in cooler
weather. We will put out some beans and of course cabbage. We may do some
potatoes too. What do you like to grow?
But what about fertilizer? Glad you asked. Now, most of us have our
favorite brand of fertilizer. Some of us had some secret fertilzers that we used in
the past. For me it was composted alpaca manure. Yes, we raised alpacas in
the north, but that is another story for another day....
...Once the temperatures have begun to drop, it is better to use a good
liquid fertilizer. The one I will be using this year is SUNSHINE Robusta. SUNSHINE Robusta is an organic amino acid based
liquid fertilizer that is safe to use with every watering. It uses amino acids to
chelate (bind) micro-nutrients and makes it easier for plants to take them up
from the soil. Most fertilizers use EDTA to chelate their micro-nutrients
and plants must use about 4 times more energy to break them down than they do
with SUNSHINE Boosters. This means that your plants will have more energy to
put into growth. And isn't that what we are after?
With Special Seasonal price for 16 oz bottle reduced to only $19 with FREE
shipping, this is your best choice of organic, safe fertilizer for your
vegetable garden!..
