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🎉 Happy New Year!
Here’s to a fresh calendar, happy plants, curious cats, and lots of good garden moments ahead. Let’s make it a fun, green, slightly muddy one 🌿😺
💌 Top Tropicals Newsletter cats Smokey and Sunshine reminding you:
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New way to grow Vanilla Orchid, and a wise message at the end
Vanilla planifolia - Vanilla Bean Orchid
🎆 New way to grow Vanilla Orchid, and a wise message at the end
✨ Vanilla planifolia - Vanilla Bean Orchid (they call it also Madagascar, Bourbon, or French Vanilla) discovered a new set up!
✨ I gave this vanilla orchid as a tiny plant last year: "Bathroom with a skylight, add trellis" - classic vanilla advice.
✨ Fast forward to this Christmas - and this thing has gone rogue! It climbed out of the bathroom, marched down the hallway, and claimed the concrete wall by the front door. And yes, it looks very happy doing it!
✨ Every visitor stops. Every visitor stares. And then they notice the sign underneath. Turns out vanilla orchids are excellent at pointing things out.
✨ If you’ve ever wondered where vanilla really wants to grow… this one has opinions. Add something unexpected to your garden - or your house.
The secret New Deal Franklin Roosevelt never told you about
🌸 The secret New Deal Franklin Roosevelt never told you about
🌸 Schlumbergera x New Dealis not your regular Christmas cactus. Big blooms, long history. This heirloom flowers from Thanksgiving to Easter and descends from a plant first sold on the very day Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected. This variety actually vanished from the trade for decades. Its first known appearance was at a rare plant sale at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on November 8, 1932 - the exact day Franklin Roosevelt won the presidency and launched the famous New Deal. The name stuck, and so did the legend!
🌸 What makes New Deal so special? The blooms are huge - about an inch larger than standard holiday cactus flowers - and come in brilliant violet-pink and white. And the timing is even better. It sends up a full flush around Thanksgiving and Christmas, then wakes up again with a second wave closer to Easter. That’s why some people call it a Thanksgiving cactus, others call it a Christmas cactus, and many insist it’s an Easter cactus. The truth? It’s all three.
🌸 Despite its pedigree, New Deal is surprisingly easy to grow. It thrives in normal houseplant conditions, stays compact, and rewards even casual care with heavy, reliable blooming.
🌸 The plants available today come from true descendant cuttings of an original 1932 specimen that is still alive. This makes New Deal one of the rarest, most authentic holiday cactus cultivars you can own - a living slice of history and one of the most generous bloomers of the entire holiday season.
The secret New Deal Franklin Roosevelt never told you about
Schlumbergera x New Deal - Thanksgiving-to-Easter blooming Cactus
🌸 The secret New Deal Franklin Roosevelt never told you about
🌸 Schlumbergera x New Deal is not your regular Christmas cactus. Big blooms, long history. This heirloom flowers from Thanksgiving to Easter and descends from a plant first sold on the very day Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected.
This variety actually vanished from the trade for decades. Its first known appearance was at a rare plant sale at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on November 8, 1932 - the exact day Franklin Roosevelt won the presidency and launched the famous New Deal. The name stuck, and so did the legend!
🌸 What makes New Deal so special? The blooms are huge - about an inch larger than standard holiday cactus flowers - and come in brilliant violet-pink and white. And the timing is even better. It sends up a full flush around Thanksgiving and Christmas, then wakes up again with a second wave closer to Easter. That’s why some people call it a Thanksgiving cactus, others call it a Christmas cactus, and many insist it’s an Easter cactus. The truth? It’s all three.
🌸 Despite its pedigree, New Deal is surprisingly easy to grow. It thrives in normal houseplant conditions, stays compact, and rewards even casual care with heavy, reliable blooming.
🌸 The plants available today come from true descendant cuttings of an original 1932 specimen that is still alive. This makes New Deal one of the rarest, most authentic holiday cactus cultivars you can own - a living slice of history and one of the most generous bloomers of the entire holiday season.
It opens overnight, wakes up just for Thanksgiving!
Gloxinia sylvatica - Bolivian Sunset
🔥 It opens overnight, wakes up just for Thanksgiving!
🔥 Gloxinia sylvatica - Bolivian Sunset, is one of those plants that waits for the perfect cool morning and then explodes in red.
🔥 The blooms really do show up overnight - bright fire-red, glowing even in deep shade. and blooms all through fall and winter. In Summer it sleeps, then flowers come back in Fall.
🔥 It's an easy, water-loving, shade-loving plant that makes a showy holiday ground cover. It stays low, spreads from rhizomes. And if you like sharing plants, this one gives you plenty of starts to pass around during the holidays. Perfect timing, perfect color, perfect seasonal surprise!
