Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

Date: 2 Feb 2022

5 most rewarding tropical fruit trees

Top Tropicals @ Garden America Radio Show

...The most popular garden radio show Garden America is featuring Top Tropicals topic "5 most practical and rewarding fruit trees for subtropical areas".

1) Jackfruit Orange Crush (Artocarpus heterophyllus)
...We recently obtained this variety and it is hands down the best Jackfruit we ever tasted. It is crunchy, sweet, aromatic, with bright orange pulp...

2) Dwarf Guava Hawaiian Rainbow (Psidium nana)
- A very small version of the favorite aromatic Guava.
- Grows only up to 5-6 ft tall with a short trunk and branching, bushy habit.

3) Yellow Pitaya, Dragon Fruit (Selenicereus megalanthus)
- This particular species of Dragon fruit is the sweetest and has great flavor unlike most pitayas
- doesn't mind regular water and rains but is also drought-tolerant

4) Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica)
- Can be kept as a very compact tree, and fruits in a pot.
- Flowers and fruits right away. The plants are covered with flowers now and setting fruit.
- Very cold hardy to upper 20's, drought tolerant, fast growing

5) Macadamia Nut (Macadamia integrifolia x tetraphylla)
- The most delicious and popular sweet nuts that are usually so expensive, can be produced in your garden!
- Cold hardy, fast growing, and very productive.

Listen to Facebook-Live Show (recording):

Date: 29 Dec 2021

Magenta Freckles of Shooting Stars

A Nerve Flower for a natural stress relieve

by Alex Butova, the Witch of Herbs and Cats

...A compact grower, this happy plant takes both sun and shade, and thrives nearly in any conditions and soils... From afar, we see its smiling, sunny, happy flower faces dotted with magenta-purple freckles, reverberating in the showering sunlight... The low growing bushes cheer you with a cascade of their star-flower fireworks. And the bonus part is - striking leaves: papery, narrow, metallic-green with bright mauve underneath in attractive trailing clumps. The combination of pinkish flowers with splashes of purple and these unusual leaves make this plant quite unique. Australians say that presence of these plants in the garden removes anxiety and calms your nerves...

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Date: 16 Dec 2021

Zebrina Rojo - Blood Leaf Banana

by Alex Butova, the Witch of Herbs and Cats

...The showy Blood Banana plants grow 6-8 ft tall in the wild, but are well-adapted to container growing and can be maintained at only 3-5 ft. They produce huge paddle-shaped leaves that grow to 6 ft long! The undersides of these large leaves are purple to red...

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Date: 8 Dec 2021

Event Mementos (Saturday 12/4)

We thank all of our guests for joining us last Saturday for the Holiday Sale. We met lots of great people who got lots of great plants and goodies! Our vendors offered wonderful treats and entertainment and everyone could find something special! The food was not only tasty but also COLORFUL!
Special Thanks to our PeopleCats who ran the show, as always!
Come back again to our next event in a few months, info coming soon.

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Date: 24 Oct 2021

Bottlebrush to Little John
or the story of a Dwarf Plant

by Alex Butova, the Witch of Herbs and Cats

...Bottlebrush... Bottle washing brushes... Nowadays, it is hard to imagine a more outdated concept! For reuse, all glass containers have been cleaned industrially for many years. Young people have never even heard of, especially used, such a thing. Nevertheless, Bottlebrush not only lives, but is often used by many people. In today's world, Bottlebrushes are not brushes at all, but... beautiful ornamental plants!..
...This plant was originally selected as a chance seedling in the 1980s by Ken Dunstan of Alstonville, New South Wales and was also called Callistemon Alstonville Dwarf, Tom Thumb and, at last, Little John. They said that the choice of this name was the song "Little John, Bottle John" by the American singer and songwritter Terry Grosvenor on lyrics by Laura E. Richard. Little John was the 1986 Shrub of the Year in Australia and was originally introduced as a plant that only grew to 3ft tall...

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