Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

Date: 4 May 2025

Top Eight irresistible vines for a hummingbird haven

vines for a hummingbird haven

vines for a hummingbird haven

🕊 Top Eight irresistible vines for a hummingbird haven. Part 1.



Below is the Hummingbird Haven Plan designed for continuous blooms, vertical interest, and year-round hummingbird attraction.

Centerpiece (Tall Structure / Arbor)
  • Thunbergia, especially Thunbergia mysorensis (Clock Vine). Provide strong overhead support for its hanging blooms. Let this showstopper trail over a sturdy pergola or arbor. Its long, red-and-yellow flowers will be your garden’s main hummingbird magnet.

  • Side Support (Trellis or Fence)
  • Bignonia capreolata (Crossvine) - A hardy, fast-growing native that clings to supports. Train it on a trellis for early-spring blooms that attract the season’s first hummingbirds.
  • Tecomaria (Cape Honeysuckle) - A vigorous, evergreen bloomer that loves full sun. Its bright red-orange tubular flowers draw hummingbirds throughout the year and are perfect for training along fences or trellises.

  • Mid-layer (Fence, Arch, or Large Pot Trellis)
  • Passiflora (especially vitifolia or coccinea). Needs full sun, rich soil, and regular water; prune to manage size and boost flowering. Let it twine near seating areas for bold red blooms and close-up hummingbird visits.

  • Ground-Level Accents
  • Ipomoea (including Prince Kuhio Vine) - Thrives in warm, frost-free zones with sun and moisture. Plant at the base of structures or in containers to sprawl or climb with vivid purple-pink blooms.
  • Lonicera (including L. sempervirens - Coral Honeysuckle) - Plant at the base of a trellis or fence, near the arbor. This cold-hardy native has red-orange or yellow tubular blooms from spring to fall and adds a delicate contrast to tropical textures.

  • Wild Touch / Quick Filler
  • Antigonon leptopus - Mexican Coral Vine - Loves sun and drains well; drought-tolerant but frost-sensitive. Great for fences and open trellises as a fast-growing, summer-to-fall bloomer buzzing with activity.
  • Pyrostegia venusta (Flame Vine) - Bursting in fiery orange, perfect for fences or pergolas. Plant along a back fence or side trellis where it can sprawl wide and fill empty space. Thrives in full sun, blooms in winter-spring, and complements vertical stars like Thunbergia and Passionflower.


📝 These vines feature tubular, nectar-rich blooms that hummingbirds adore.
Add a shallow birdbath or feeder nearby, and you'll have a full-service nectar station!

See full list of Hummingbird favorite vines in next post ⤵️

🛒
Turn Your Garden Into a Hummingbird Paradise!

#Hedges_with_benefits #Butterfly_Plants #How_to

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Date: 25 May 2025

Another Musk from Africa that came before Elon: the true Healer from Zulu

Musk Bush - Iboza riparia, Misty Plume Bush, or Ginger Bush - flowers

Musk Bush - Iboza riparia, Misty Plume Bush, or Ginger Bush - flowers

Musk Bush - Iboza riparia, Misty Plume Bush, or Ginger Bush - flowers

Musk Bush - Iboza riparia, Misty Plume Bush, or Ginger Bush - flowers

Musk Bush - Iboza riparia, Misty Plume Bush, or Ginger Bush - flowers

Musk Bush - Iboza riparia, Misty Plume Bush, or Ginger Bush - flowers

Musk Bush - Iboza riparia, Misty Plume Bush, or Ginger Bush - leaves

Musk Bush - Iboza riparia, Misty Plume Bush, or Ginger Bush - leaves

🚀 Another Musk from Africa that came before Elon: the true Healer from Zulu.
  • 🚀 This African Musk has less hype and more goodness: it won't buy Twitter but it might cure your cough!
  • 🚀 Musk Bush (Iboza riparia) - also called Misty Plume Bush, or Ginger Bush, is a highly aromatic shrub with a long tradition of healing use in African herbal medicine. Its soft, velvety leaves release a sweet ginger-like scent when crushed and are packed with medicinal value.
  • 🚀 Medicinal uses


  • 💚 Respiratory relief: The Zulu people traditionally use Iboza as an inhalant for coughs, chest congestion, and even malaria. Crushed leaves are often inhaled or made into a steam bath to clear the lungs.
  • 💚 Natural relaxant: Often used alongside Psychotria viridis for calming effects, this plant is prized for its gentle sedative properties.
  • 💚 Headache and digestive aid: Inhaling the fragrance can ease headaches, and teas or infusions are used to soothe stomach aches.


🚀 Plant facts

  • 💚 Growth: Fast-growing (up to 3 ft/year), up to 6 ft tall, with a full, bushy habit.
  • 💚 Leaves: Bright green, heart-shaped, covered in sticky aromatic hairs.
  • 💚 Flowers: showy mist-like white to lilac spikes hang in beautiful, fragrant dense clusters.
  • 💚 Fragrance: Leaves are scented like ginger with a musky twist - especially fragrant after light pruning.


🚀 Growing tips

  • 💚 Best in full sun or partial shade
  • 💚 Likes rich, well-drained soil and regular summer water, drought tolerant once established.
  • 💚 Prune hard after flowering to keep it compact and boost future blooms.
  • 💚 Grows well in pots in cold climates.


🛒 Order Musk Bush - natural remedy for body and mind

#Food_Forest #Remedies

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Date: 23 May 2025

Rikis educational television

Riki the Cat is watching TV hockey

Riki the Cat is watching TV hockey

😶 Riki's educational television



"I find television very educational. Every time someone turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book." - Groucho Marx

🐈 PeopleCats.Garden 
#PeopleCats #Quotes

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Date: 27 May 2025

Coffee trees are in bloom!

Coffee trees in bloom

☕️ Coffee trees are in bloom!



☕️ Coffee prices are climbing, supplies are tightening, and drought in Brazil is hitting hard
The best time to plant a Coffee Tree was yesterday - the next best time is right now!

🎥 Our Coffee trees (Coffea arabica) are bursting with blooms, promising a fresh harvest and home-roasted coffee like no other.
It's time to take your morning cup into your own hands!

🛒 Grow it. Pick it. Roast it. Drink it. Buy your coffee tree now!

📚 Learn more from previous posts:

  • • Brew Your Future: Grow Your Own Coffee
  • • What is coffee made of?
  • • Why Coffee tree is the best gift plant
  • • Top 10 fruit you'll ever need for your health benefits: #2. Coffee Tree
  • • What is the most popular and the easiest tropical fruit tree grown as a house plant?
  • • 

#Food_Forest #Container_Garden #Shade_Garden #Discover

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Date: 31 May 2025

The secret of the black magic is unveiled: a black plant that thrives in neglect

🖤 The secret of the black magic is unveiled: a black plant that thrives in neglect

  • ▪️This isn't just a houseplant - it's a living spell. The black ZZ plant (Zamioculcas x Black Dragon) is as mysterious as it is mesmerizing, with leaves so dark they look dipped in ink. Forget green - it's all about black - a rare, glossy marvel for collectors who crave the bold and unusual.

  • ▪️ New leaves start green... but don't be fooled. With time, they turn rich, velvety black - a transformation worthy of legend.

  • ▪️ It's not just a pretty face. Unlike any ordinary plant, this one survives on neglect. Forget to water? It won't blink. It stores water in its thick rhizomes like an ancient desert dweller, making it one of the toughest houseplants out there.

  • ▪️ It even shares a trick with ancient relics like Gonatopus - a rare power in the plant world. It's got ancient roots - literally. Its oddball talent of dropping leaflets that sprout into baby plants makes it one of the few plants in the world that can clone itself this way!


🛒 Collectors, the secret is out: bring home the magic of the the black dragon

📚 More from previous posts:


#Nature_Wonders #Container_Garden #Shade_Garden


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