Date: 16 May 2026
🔮 When the World Around Becomes Too Gray: Plant a Tree. Eat a Donut. Keep going.
Smokey: Plant a tree.
Sunshine: And if that does not help?
Smokey: Plant another one.
Sunshine: And eat a donut.
Smokey: Not strictly necessary, but statistically beneficial.
If you have been feeling a little worn down lately, you are not alone.
You already know about the headlines. We do not need to list them. You have probably seen them today before breakfast.
We are not here to pretend that is not happening. It is happening. And it is a lot. But here is the thing we keep coming back to, the thing that has been true for as long as people have had hands and a patch of ground: when the world feels out of control, you can still plant something.
Gardening is not an escape. It is an answer. When you put a tree in the ground, you are making a quiet statement. You are saying that you expect there to be a future. That you intend to be in it. That shade and fruit and flowers still matter, and you are going to make sure they exist in your corner of the world.
That is not naive. That is courageous in the most ordinary and underrated way.
One tree, planted this season, might give you fruit in a few years. It might give butterflies somewhere to stop. It might give a bird a place to nest. It will almost certainly give you something to look at on a hard day that reminds you the world still contains beauty, and that you put some of it there. And if one tree does not quite do it? Plant another one.
Dostoevsky said beauty will save the world. We think a mango fruiting in your backyard counts. So does a Magnolia opening on a quiet morning.
Do not skip the donut.
A donut is a small, simple, completely unnecessary thing. That is exactly the point. It is not productive. It does not solve anything. It is just good, and sometimes that is the whole reason. In a world that constantly demands you be useful and informed and concerned, eating a donut is a quiet act of being human. You are allowed to enjoy a small thing on a hard day. You do not have to earn it.
Rest a little. Then go put something in the ground. Anything that will grow and flower and remind you that beautiful things are still happening whether the headlines mention them or not.
We have the plants. You bring the donuts.
🛒 Plant a sweeter world: grow color and flavor
Date: 21 Jun 2026
🍓The Strawberry Moon Rises: A Gardener's Excuse to Go Outside
Smokey: Science hasn't found much evidence for it.
Sunshine: Then what's the point?
Smokey: If the moon gets people into the garden, that's good enough for me.
On the evening of Monday, June 29, 2026, the full Strawberry Moon will rise low in the southeastern sky. Whether you follow a lunar calendar or not, it's a good excuse to spend a little time outside on a summer evening.
🌛 What Is the Strawberry Moon, Exactly?
Many of the familiar full moon names come from Native American traditions and reflect seasonal events in nature. June's full moon was named for the season when wild strawberries ripen across much of North America, not for any color in the sky. Despite the name, the moon won't glow pink or red. If it looks warm or golden, that's simply because any full moon takes on an amber tint when it hangs low near the horizon, the same atmospheric effect that paints sunsets orange. The "strawberry" is about the harvest, not the hue.
This year, the Strawberry Moon rises on the evening of June 29 and will appear low in the southeastern sky, making it a particularly beautiful moon to watch as dusk settles in.
🌓 Moon Gardening, an Old and Honest Tradition
For generations, gardeners across Europe and beyond timed their planting, pruning, and harvesting to the phases of the moon. Plant root crops during a waning moon, some traditions say, and leafy crops during a waxing one. Prune during certain phases to slow regrowth, harvest herbs at others for better potency. These calendars were passed down through generations of careful observers who paid close attention to their land and their results, and many still follow them today.
Modern science has found little evidence that lunar gravity or moonlight significantly affects plant growth. Yet the tradition persists, and plenty of growers still find real value in the rhythm it brings to the gardening year.
💡What We Know For Sure
Here's the practical truth, and it's the same one Smokey arrived at after thinking it over. Whether or not the moon influences your plants, the act of walking through your garden definitely does. A moon-phase calendar that gets you outside to check on your plants, pull a few weeds, prune back something leggy, top off the mulch, or water a thirsty pot is helping your garden, regardless of what's happening overhead.
The benefit isn't necessarily lunar. It's attention.
A garden rarely thrives because of a single grand effort. It thrives because of dozens of small ones: a little pruning, a little watering, a few weeds pulled before they become many.
Gardens reward the gardeners who show up, and if a full moon is your reminder to show up, that's a perfectly good reason to keep watching the sky.
📅 Beyond the Harvest
Not everything in a garden needs to produce a yield to be worthwhile. Marking the seasons the way our ancestors did, a strawberry moon in June, a harvest moon in fall, a snow moon in February, gives us small, recurring reasons to notice what's changing around us. It's a rhythm, not a requirement.
Think of the Strawberry Moon as a good excuse to take a walk through the garden.
The Strawberry Moon doesn't have to improve anything to be worth celebrating. It only needs to get you outside on a warm June evening, which, honestly, isn't a high bar to clear.
A Strawberry Moon Collection, Just for
Fun
Sunshine immediately concluded that any moon named after strawberries deserved a few strawberry-themed plants. We couldn't argue with that logic, so we pulled together a few Top Tropicals favorites that fit the theme.
🍓 Strawberry Tree
Strawberry Tree (Muntingia calabura), also known as Jamaican Cherry, grows quickly and produces dainty white flowers resembling strawberry flowers, followed by an abundance of small cotton-candy-sweet berries that birds, wildlife, gardeners and their kids all appreciate.
📚 Learn more from Top Tropicals Garden Blog
🍓 Strawberry Guava
Strawberry Guava (Psidium littorale) brings glossy foliage and sweet, perfumed fruit that tastes something like its namesake crossed with a guava.
🍓 Strawberry Dragon Fruit
Dragon Fruit Vietnamese Jaina Strawberry White (Hylocereus undatus ) produces bright pink fruit with refreshing white flesh and a flavor often described as a blend of strawberry, melon, and kiwi. Its enormous night-blooming flowers are every bit as impressive as the fruit, turning this vigorous climbing cactus into a spectacular summer showpiece.
🍓 Strawberry Ginger
Coral Ginger Borneo Strawberry Pink (Riedelia coralina) is one of the rarest gingers in cultivation, producing unusual strawberry-pink flower spikes that seem almost too exotic to be real. The edible blooms have a pleasant spicy fragrance and flavor, making this New Guinea treasure as interesting to taste as it is to admire.
Whether you came for the moon or the plants, we hope you discovered something interesting. They just happen to share a name with the moon overhead this June, and that felt like reason enough to give them a little spotlight.
🍓🌱 How to Grow Them
If you live in a frost-free climate (USDA Zones 10+), simply plant these strawberry gems in the ground and enjoy. Strawberry Guava can tolerate occasional frosts down to about 28F once established.
Not so lucky? Many gardeners successfully grow Strawberry Guava, Strawberry Dragon Fruit, and Strawberry Tree in containers, moving them indoors or to a protected location during winter. You don't need a tropical climate to enjoy tropical fruit.
🏡 See You Outside
Whether you believe in moon gardening or not, June 29 is a good night to step outside, find an open view of the southeastern sky, and watch the Strawberry Moon rise. Bring a cup of tea, walk the garden beds while there's still light, pull a few weeds, and let the evening settle in around you.
And that may be the real lesson of the Strawberry Moon.
Smokey: What does the moon calendar recommend?
Sunshine: I have no idea. I left it on the kitchen table. Both hands are full.
Smokey: Of course they are. Coffee and donuts. Let's start with the weeds.
Date: 13 Jun 2022
Secret Garden - 50% OFF
The point of your Garden
"...A garden always has a point..."
- Elizabeth Hoyt, The Raven Prince -
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Photo above: Trachelospermum asiaticum Ogon Nishiki Gold Brocade (tri-color), very undemanding plant, can be used as an eye catching groundcover.
Date: 30 Oct 2021
Soil, media, substrate or just plain dirt, which is correct?
by Ed Jones, the Booster guy
...Dirt. What is it really and does it matter what you use to grow your plants? What is the right dirt for growing plants? In the growing industry, we refer to it as soil, media or substrate. In the real world, we just call it dirt. But is it? Is it just dirt or is it something special? We will try to give some good insight in this article...
CONTINUE READING >>
Date: 24 Jul 2021
Healthy Plants: Q&A from Mr Booster
How to fertilize Caladiums and other Aroids
By Ed Jones, the Booster Guy
Q: I have a large collection of Aroid plants, different Monsteras, Philodendrons, and several unique varieties of Caladiums. I've been always told that Caladiums should not be fertilized, they don't like it. Is it so?
A: Caladium farmers often say that these plants don't need any additional fertilizer and that they really don't like it... The thing
is, caladiums do not like DRY fertilizers, and this is why. Most Aroid plants do not like being watered too often, so dry fertilizers in combination
with infrequent watering create excessive salinity for the root system. We have run some tests on the proper fertilizers for caladiums and the best results were
performed after using SUNSHINE
Robusta. It is amino acid based, so the delicate, large-leaved Aroid plants will not have to work quite so hard to take up the nutrients, and there will be no nutrient
lock up in soil. The nutrients are readily available to these plants.
In this article, you will see some test results of caladiums fertilized with
SUNSHINE Robusta vs. other brands of fertilizer, with more vigorous growth and larger leaf size occurring after use of Sunshine Robusta...
Caladiums do not have to be just an accent plant. They can also be the focus point of a garden area. It is said that as many as 98% of the world's caladium tubers come from right here in Highlands County, Florida, also home to the Sunshine Boosters manufacturing facility. It is such a big deal that they have a Caladium Festival here each summer. The fields are absolutely stunning in all of their colors. This year the festival runs this weekend, July 23 - July 25.
