Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

Date: 26 Dec 2024

How to grow your own vanilla orchid at home

Vanilla Bean Orchid (Vanilla planifolia)

Vanilla Bean Orchid (Vanilla planifolia)

Vanilla Bean Orchid (Vanilla planifolia), flower

Vanilla Bean Orchid (Vanilla planifolia), flower

Vanilla Bean Orchid (Vanilla planifolia), seed pods beans

Vanilla Bean Orchid (Vanilla planifolia), seed pods beans

Vanilla Bean Orchid (Vanilla planifolia)

Vanilla Bean Orchid (Vanilla planifolia)

How to grow your own vanilla orchid at home

  • 🍨 The Vanilla Bean Orchid (Vanilla planifolia) is a tropical climbing beauty and the source of the world’s favorite spice - vanilla. This luxurious plant adds elegance to any space, indoors or out.
  • 🍨 A piece of history: Once revered by the Aztecs for flavoring the decadent cacao drink Xoco-latl, vanilla remains a symbol of comfort, luxury, and flavor.
  • 🍨 Why it's special: Vanilla pods are scentless at first and develop their rich aroma after careful curing - a reason it’s the second most expensive spice after saffron.
  • 🍨 How to grow Vanilla Orchid:


  • · Support: Use a trellis, log, or burlap-covered board for climbing.
  • · Light: Bright, indirect light works best.
  • · Environment: Keep it warm and humid, like its natural tropical habitat.
  • · For pots: Add a mini-trellis or small log to mimic its natural climbing needs.


🍨 Why you'll love it:


Growing your own vanilla means adding a slice of the tropics to your home, with the chance to harvest your own vanilla beans for homemade extracts. It's beautiful, exotic, and endlessly rewarding.

🍨 Ready to start your vanilla journey? Add a Vanilla Bean Orchiв to your cart and bring this fragrant, elegant treasure home today!

📚 Learn more from previous post:


The Secret of how to Make Vanilla Orchid bloom

🛒 Shop Vanilla Bean Orchids

#Shade_Garden #How_to

🔴 Join 👉 TopTropicals

Date: 29 Mar 2025

Why is it called Nun Orchid

Phaius tankervilleae " Chinese Ground Orchid, Nun Orchid

🌹 Why is it called Nun Orchid

  • 🔠 Phaius tankervilleae – Chinese Ground Orchid - is a magnificent terrestrial orchid. It is also called the Nun Orchid because its flowers resemble the traditional white wimple and brown habit worn by nuns. The graceful, nodding blooms with white, rose, and brown hues create a shape reminiscent of a nun's veil. A truly heavenly plant!
  • 🔠 It forms large clumps of bold, sword-like leaves and sends up towering flower spikes that can reach four feet tall! Each spike carries 10-20 fragrant blooms, unfurling in succession for an extended show.
  • 🔠 The flowers are a striking mix of white, rose, and brown, blooming brilliantly in late spring, with peak flowering in March and April.
  • 🔠 This hardy orchid spreads naturally, producing a new plant each year from a short bulb-like runner. It prefers shade, especially under trees, and can handle dry periods before its grand floral display.
  • 🔠 Perfect for mass plantings, as a specimen in part shade, or even in pots, this orchid brings grace, beauty, and an exotic touch.


📚 Learn more from previous posts:



🛍 Get Ground Orchids and enjoy exotic flowers in shade

#Container_Garden #Shade_Garden

🔴 Join 👉 TopTropicals

Date: 30 Apr 2025

How to enhance your garden with hardy tropical: Fast Growing White Orchid Tree

Bauhinia alba (candida) - White Orchid Tree

How to enhance your garden with hardy tropical: Fast Growing White Orchid Tree

  • 💮 Bauhinia alba (candida) - White Orchid Tree - is the most cold hardy of all bauhinias. It is a medium-sized, fast-growing tree with short trunk and spreading branches that provide excellent shade.
  • 💮 Abundant, fragrant white flowers adorned with subtle lemon-green markings, blooming from winter through spring and intermittently in summer.
  • 💮 Cold Hardy: Among the most frost-tolerant Bauhinias, thriving in temperatures as low as 26F. ​
  • 💮 Rapid Growth: Grows quickly, reaching heights of 15 to 30 feet, ideal for creating a lush, shaded area. ​
  • 💮 Attracts Pollinators: The large, showy flowers attract hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies, enhancing your garden's ecosystem.​
  • 💮 Low Maintenance: Drought-tolerant once established and thrives in well-drained soil with full sun exposure. ​


📚 Orchid trees from previous posts:

🛒 Enhance your garden with White Orchid Tree

#Hedges_with_benefits #Trees #Butterfly_Plants

🔴 Join 👉 TopTropicals

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

🟢 Join 👉 TopTropicals

Date: 17 Oct 2024

Do you have a spot for pure white and elegant?

Bauhinia acuminata - Dwarf White Orchid Tree

🕊 Do you have a spot for pure white and elegant?

  • Bauhinia acuminata - Dwarf White Orchid Tree - is a true gem for any garden! This charming small tree flaunts pure white, orchid-like flowers that bring a delicate beauty to sunny or semi-shaded spaces.
  • Despite its smaller size, it's a standout with its lovely, five-petaled blooms and graceful, rounded leaves.
  • Ideal for compact gardens or even containers, the Dwarf White Orchid Tree creates a tropical, elegant atmosphere while being easy to care for.
  • With its bright, long-lasting blooms, this tree is sure to capture your heart!


📚 Learn more about Orchid trees from previous posts:

🛒 Shop Orchid Trees

#Hedges_with_benefits #Trees #Butterfly_Plants

🔴 Join 👉 TopTropicals