Ten steps to Happy Gardening in 2023

Beginning of the year checklist

To assist our customers in creating a happy and enjoyable gardening experience this year, we consulted with our horticulturist to compile a list of ten recommended items. Here are the results...

1. A favorite. Get yourself a favorite small flowering plant that is compact, manageable, and easy. Such as Ground Orchid. Keep it in a pot or plant in the ground by the entryway where it can be seen often and enjoyed.
2. A fruit of your labor. You need at least one (or one more) fruit tree for your garden, or for container culture if you live in colder climate. Growing and especially harvesting tropical fruit will make you happy. The Winner of the last year was Cherry Lolita - an easy, compact fruit tree that can produce almost year around. Some fruit trees will fruit right away!
3. Be exclusive. A rare plant is a must for every gardener. It can be a useful gem such as Noni Tree or an unusual-looking like a Bat Lily - Tacca. Show your friends and neighbors something different they have never seen!
4. Make it cool. Finally plant that shade tree by your driveway. Yes it takes time to grow, but the sooner you plant it, the sooner you get that shade! There are some fast growing species, some only take a couple of years to the mature size.
5. Beauty. If you have an ugly fence or unwanted view in your yard, cover it with a flowering vine. Look at the beauty every day and make your life better. Replace a boring standard hedge with colorful flowering shrubs that will make you smile.
6. Scent. Add some fragrant plants to your landscape and inhale their healing magic.
7. Tropical. For a shady corner, select a showy tropical with lush foliage such as Philodendron or Monstera, or all time favorite Banana. Get a feel of tropics.
8. Happiness of giving. Buy a gift plant for someone you care about but don't know how to thank them. Live plant is the best expression of love and gratitude. If you are unsure what plant to pick, ask our Team or simply buy a Gift Certificate that will never expire - let them chose the plant they like.
9. Food for all. A set of quality liquid fertilizers is a must - try Sunshine Boosters that can be used year around. They will make your plants healthy, strong, fast growing, cold hardy and disease-resistant. You can choose formulas for different plant types from our selection, or simply buy online a Nutrition Kit of 8 bottles that will cover all your needs and save you 50% on fertilizer cost!
10. Share. Subscribe your friend to TopTropicals Newsletter so they can get a weekly Piece of Tropics in their mailbox. Cool Cat Photos come as a bonus!

Make sure to always have on hand at least 2 main formulas of Sunshine Boosters - Robusta for vegetative growth, and C-Cibus that will satisfy plant needs for both fruit production and profuse flowering

Healthy Plant Food: Q&A from Mr Booster

Encouraging blooms on the Hawaiian Sunset Bell Vine

Q: Please can you advise how to encourage the Stictocardia beraviensis the Hawaiian Sunset Bell vine blooms? Mine is all beautiful leaves and full sun in Miami.

A: Providing full sun, Stictocardia blooms profusely. In your area, it should be happy and thriving. However, keep in mind that these flowers can be seasonal (meaning, not ever-blooming). The good news it, Hawaiian Sunset Bell usually blooms several times a year on and off. In our garden, we have a large plant growing in the ground and covering a whole fence; we see flowers 3 times a year:
- Early Spring
- Summer (sporadically)
- Late Fall to early Winter

Make sure to provide proper fertilizer to encourage blooms. It is especially important if you grow this plant in container (where nutrients are very limited). We suggest the following fertilizer for your Stictocardia:

SUNSHINE Megaflor - Bloom Nutrition Booster

The most desired iconic Chanel flower...

By Onika Amell, tropical flower specialist

Q: I live in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. I'm looking for something fragrant to grow on my porch. I don't have a lot of space and am interested to find something unusual that won't grow too large. Any suggestions? I've heard about Chanel #5 tree and I wonder I can keep it in a pot?

A: The Ylang-Ylang tree, Cananga odorata, emits a fragrance so soft and beautiful it became an essential ingredient of Coco Chanel's iconic and much-loved perfume Chanel No 5. Trouble is, it will grow into a giant. How do you get this kind of magic onto your lanai or porch? Opt for its smaller relative: Dwarf Ylang Ylang, Cananga fruticosa (pronounced ee-lang ee-lang, meaning: flowers of flowers).

The fragrance is a little less intense than its larger cousin, but still wonderful to have around. Let the fragrance drift slowly through the air into your home at night. The scent is strongest from dusk to dawn and it will need warm and humid conditions for a fuller aroma.
Dwarf Ylang-Ylang is ideal for folks with limited space as it can be grown in a container or as a house plant. It's a very unusual and interesting plant to add to your porch, lanai or garden. It's pretty easy to grow and disease resistant too. It will stay compact and in nice tree-like shape. Dwarf Ylang Ylang starts blooming quite young and will continue to bloom year-round with profuse blooming during the spring and summer months.
The tree prefers a high-humidity environment, evenly moist soil, warm temperatures and will grow best in plant hardiness zones 10-11 but can take short periods of cold.
Read more about Chanel No5 Flower...

Dwarf Ylang Ylang is certainly one of the most desired and sought after rare, fragrant plants. Get yours today!

Featured plant. Sauromatum (Typhonium) venosum - Voodoo Lily

Sauromatum (Typhonium) venosum - Voodoo Lily

Rare Amorphophallus ralative, Typhonium venosum (Sauromatum venosum), is a common shade-loving house or garden plant from temperate and tropical Africa and Asia. This plant is also known as the Voodoo Bulb because of its ability to flower from a corm without soil and water. Tuberous perennial with solitary, segmented round leaf and strange, arum-like flower. Rare collectable, it is a showy exotic container plant.
Typhonium grows to around 20 inches tall from an underground corm. A large corm can spawn multiple new corms. Inflorescences emerge before the leaves. An inflorescence has a purplish-brown-spotted, yellowish spathe and a purplish-brown spadix which emit a strong odor perceived as similar to cow manure, rotting flesh, or a dirty wet dog, depending on who smells the inflorescence ;) The odor lasts only a day and attracts carrion-feeding insects which can pollinate this plant.
Plants we have in stock, have tubers 1-2"in diameter. The plant goes dormant in winter and starts sprouting in March-April. Keep soil slightly moist but not wet, and wait for the magic leaf to pop up... The plant should flower within a year or two.

Check out this plant...

Featured plant. Acalypha pendula, Dwarf Chenille Plant

Strawberry Firetails, Dwarf Cat Tails, Kittens Tail...

Everybody wants this plant! Acalypha pendula, Dwarf Chenille Plant gets its common name from the fuzzy plumes of tiny, foxtail-shaped bright red flowers that trail above a thick mound of small, serrated leaves. Given enough light, this plant blooms nearly year-round! The blossoms that begin as wispy buttons and elongate into fuzzy cones. At maturity, they become 3-4"long streamers.
A spectacular plant for a hanging basket, container or ground cover, it is heat tolerant, great for both hot Southern landscapes or as an easy houseplant, providing bright light. Place this unusual house plant on a pedestal stand or pot it in a hanging basket to show off those eye-catching fuzzy blooms.
This is a dwarf plant that stays small and doesn't need pruning. It's naturally bushy, so you don't have to pinch its growing tips to get it to branch out. A favorite with children, and cats too!

Get it from our store with FREE shipping!