Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

Date: 5 Mar 2025

Why Adeniums are the most popular container plants

Adeniums  in  pots

What is the easiest and most showy plant for your patio or poolside?

Q: Can you recommend a compact, showy plant for a container by the pool that will bloom with minimal care and survive if I forget to water it? I need 4-5 of them... Does such a plant even exist, or is that too much to ask?

A: Surprisingly, such a plant does exist! Meet the Desert Rose - Adenium - the perfect flowering plant for low-maintenance beauty. Just look at those colors!

Why choose Adenium for your container garden?

Desert roses - Adeniums - are among the most popular container plants for both indoor and outdoor settings. Here's why:
- Easy to grow - Thrives in sun or shade, indoors, and in low humidity.
- Drought-tolerant - Requires minimal water and can go long periods without it.
- Not picky about soil and pH.
- Spectacular blooms - Produces vibrant, showy flowers.
- Unique and eye-catching - Forms a curious, swollen caudex with unusual shapes.

How many varieties and colors are out there?

- At Top Tropicals, we offer over 200 varieties of Adeniums, with more than 100 in stock at any time.
- With so many stunning hybrid colors, you'll want to collect them all!
- Enjoy double flowers, red, purple, yellow, striped, dotted, rainbow, and even black flowers!

The secret to a large, swollen caudex:

- Raise the plant slightly each time you repot it, exposing the upper part of the roots - this encourages the plant to form more roots that grow downward.
- Unlike most tropical and houseplants, Adeniums prefer neutral to hard water, have very low water needs, and can thrive in full sun or shade.

Adeniums truly check all the boxes for a carefree, long-blooming, and striking poolside or patio plant!

Adeniums  caudexes

Date: 13 Apr 2025

The Tree Everyones Talking About: Variegated Mahoe

Hibiscus tiliaceus Variegatum - Variegated Mahoe

Hibiscus tiliaceus Variegatum - Variegated Mahoe

Hibiscus tiliaceus Variegatum - Variegated Mahoe flowers

Hibiscus tiliaceus Variegatum - Variegated Mahoe flowers

Hibiscus tiliaceus Variegatum - Variegated Mahoe leaves

Hibiscus tiliaceus Variegatum - Variegated Mahoe leaves

Hibiscus tiliaceus Variegatum - Variegated Mahoe young tree

Hibiscus tiliaceus Variegatum - Variegated Mahoe young tree

🍀 The Tree Everyone's Talking About: Variegated Mahoe

  • 🌳 Hibiscus tiliaceus Variegatum is the must-have tree of the year - and for good reason! This stunning, fast-growing beauty delivers shade in just one season, with a more compact, umbrella-like shape than its wild cousin, the standard Mahoe (that grows into a very large tree).
  • 🌳 Variegated Mahoe's eye-catching foliage is a show in itself: splashes of red, white, green, and pink create a living kaleidoscope. The blooms are just as magical - starting yellow and deepening to orange and red as they age.
  • 🌳 Perfect for Southern gardens and hot-climate landscapes, the Variegated Mahoe is low-maintenance, colorful, cool and cooling, and endlessly rewarding. Everyone wants it, and once you see it, you'll understand why!


🛒 Add color, shade, and tropical flair to your garden with Variegated Mahoe

#Trees #Discover

🔴 Join 👉 TopTropicals

Date: 2 Sep 2025

Ballistic buttons shooting from the mattress like popcorn!

Dorstenia bahiensis - Mattress Button Plant

🚀 Ballistic buttons shooting from the mattress like popcorn!

  • 🔘Dorstenia bahiensis - Mattress Button Plant is a shade-loving oddball. Its glossy green leaves are topped with flat, wavy discs that really do look like old-fashioned upholstery buttons scattered across the garden floor. But these button heads aren't just for show - on their surface are tiny clusters of male and female blooms, all crammed together like a mini city of flowers.
  • 🔘The real fun begins when those button heads ripen. Instead of quietly dropping seeds like most plants, Dorstenia goes full popcorn mode. With a little "pop!" the seeds are catapulted yards away, just like squeezing a watermelon seed between your fingers. One moment it's calm, the next it's launching its offspring across the yard!
  • 🔘At only 6-12 inches tall, this little understory dweller doesn't take up much space, but it makes up for it with personality. Content in the shade, thriving in any soil, and ready to surprise you with its seed-shooting tricks. Grow it in a pot, use it as quirky groundcover, or just keep it around as a party fun.


🛒 Get your own Mattress Button Plant

📚 Learn more:


How many buttons in this ballistic mattress?

#Shade_Garden #Container_Garden #Nature_Wonders

🟢 Join 👉 TopTropicals

Date: 5 Oct 2025

Whats that fragrance in the dark?

Brunfelsia - Lady of the Night

🌠 What's that fragrance in the dark?

  • 💐 Brunfelsia? People often ask: what can you plant in a shady spot that blooms year-round and smells amazing? The answer is Brunfelsia, known as Lady of the Night.
  • 💐 This Brazilian beauty is a compact, shade-loving shrub that thrives in low light and rewards you with creamy white flowers. As the sun sets, the blooms release a sweet, unforgettable perfume that lingers through the night. It’s like nature’s way of setting the mood for evening strolls.
  • 💐 Brunfelsia is more than just fragrance. Its flowers attract butterflies and hummingbirds, turning shaded corners into lively little stages. Low-maintenance, pollinator-friendly, and elegant, it’s the answer to your prayers: shade, flowers, and fragrance all in one plant.
  • 💐 The most fragrant Brunfelsias are the creamy-white varieties, often called Lady of the Night.
Popular species include: B. americana, B. isola, B. nitida, B. lactea, B. manaca, B. densifolia, B. gigantea.

Do you already grow Brunfelsia? What kind do you have in your garden?

🛒 Experience Brunfelsia fragrance

📚 Learn more about Brunfelsias:


#Perfume_Plants #Hedges_with_benefits #Container_Garden #Shade_Garden

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Date: 15 Jun 2021

Establishing Avocado tree after shipping

Q: Received my Avocado tree last week and I'm a bit concerned. Is this wilting normal with a new plant? No yellowing, or dropping of leaves. We moved it out of the sun but not sure how to handle?

A: This is normal for after-shipping stress. You did right, position the tree away from direct sun, in shade, preferably under roof (patio?) so it doesn't get over-watered with too much rain and you can control water amount. We recommend to spray the leaves with pure water and put a large clear plastic bag just over the crown (leave the soil to breath). Keep in shade. Within couple days the leaves should perk up. Do not overwater. Water only when the top of soil gets slightly dry. In a week or so, once the plant recovers, you may start moving it gradually into full sun, then to its permanent spot where you want to plant it.
Avocado is not an easy plant to establish. So be careful. It needs lots of water, however, it doesn't like wet feet - so must be planted in a well-drained spot, with at least 4-6"elevation (on a little"hill") so it never gets water-logged. It needs daily water to establish and may need more than just a sprinkler system, use additional hose water when establishing in the ground.