Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

Date: 30 Jun 2025

Turn up the color in your garden with the bold everblooming Brazilian plume

Megaskepasma erythrochlamys - Brazilian plume or Red Cloak

Megaskepasma erythrochlamys - Brazilian plume or Red Cloak

Megaskepasma erythrochlamys flowers

Megaskepasma erythrochlamys flowers

♨️ Turn up the color in your garden with the bold everblooming Brazilian plume

  • ❣️Looking to add nonstop color, tropical flair for shade or sun, and pollinator appeal to your garden?
  • Megaskepasma erythrochlamys - Brazilian plume or Red Cloak, is the ultimate show-stopper shrub that takes both sun or shade.
  • ❣️ With its big, bold leaves and eye-catching crimson-to-mauve flower spikes, this plant brings exotic beauty - without the need for a steamy jungle.
  • ❣️The best part? It's surprisingly cold hardy. This lush-looking tropical can handle brief dips into the 30s (F), making it a top pick for USDA zones 9-11. Plant it in full sun or partial shade, and with regular watering, it rewards you with a steady burst of blooms that butterflies and hummingbirds can't resist.
  • ❣️Reaching 5-7 ft tall in the ground, it fills out beautifully to anchor beds or soften fences. In colder regions, it can still thrive in large pots - just give it a sheltered spot, bring it indoors when temperatures drop, and enjoy its vivid flower show all winter long.
  • ❣️If you want a garden that doesn’t fade with the season, the Brazilian plume delivers color, volume, and wildlife appeal - all year round.


🛒 Make your garden pop with color of Brazilian plume

#Hedges_with_benefits #Butterfly_Plants

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Date: 11 Aug 2025

Why every garden has this one Purple Spray Tree

Tibouchina granulosa - Glory Tree or Purple Spray Tree

💜 Why every garden has this one Purple Spray Tree

  • 🟪 Tibouchina granulosa - Glory Tree or Purple Spray Tree - is the one you'll see in every Florida garden!
  • 🟪 If you love purple flowers, this one's a no-brainer. From late summer through winter, it's covered in velvety purple blooms that form giant flower sprays. The whole tree lights up with color, and it's impossible to ignore!
  • 🟪 In Highlands County, Florida (where Top Tropicals farm is), you'll see this tree in garden after garden - and everyone says the same thing: You've gotta have one!
  • 🟪 It's tropical, eye-catching, and makes any landscape feel lush and vibrant. A true gem for southern gardens.


📚 Learn more:


💋How this addictive purple took over yards in Central Florida

🛒 Everyone has one - get yours today!

#Hedges_with_benefits #Trees

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Date: 6 Sep 2025

What is Neem and why do millions use it daily? The tree that makes toothpaste and bug spray

Neem Tree - Azadirachta indica

Neem Tree - Azadirachta indica

🌿 What is Neem and why do millions use it daily? The tree that makes toothpaste and bug spray.

  • 💚 Ever notice Neem listed in toothpaste or skin cream? Or even in natural insecticides and garden treatments? What is this tree and why is it everywhere? Neem products come from the Neem Tree - Azadirachta indica, native to India. It's been used for thousands of years in medicine, farming, and daily life.
  • 💚 How can you use Neem?


    Almost every part of the tree has a purpose.

The leaves are brewed as tea, applied to skin for soothing, and used in villages to ward off mosquitoes or protect stored clothes from insects. They are bitter but medicinal, valued for treating malaria and even for lowering blood sugar in diabetics.
  • Dental cure. Neem twigs, thin and pencil-sized, are chewed and used as toothbrushes to strengthen gums and fight bacteria. Today, toothpicks and dental sticks are still made from them.
  • Neem oil for your Garden. The seeds produce neem oil, a natural insect repellent and fungicide for the garden that doesn’t harm bees or butterflies.
  • Bark extracts are used in medicine
  • Ripe fruits are eaten fresh and considered beneficial too.


💚 Why do people plant Neem?


It’s more than a medicine chest. In India, Neem is planted along streets and in villages as a source of shade, air purifier, and natural pest control. One tree supports health, provides garden protection, and even supplies food.

💚 Is it easy to grow?


Yes. Neem tree thrives in hot, dry conditions and needs little care. Once established, it only needs low to medium water and grows well even without irrigation. It can be grown as a street tree, in the yard for shade, or in poor soils where other trees struggle. Hardy, fast-growing, and evergreen, Neem is one of the most practical trees you can add to a tropical or subtropical garden.

🛒 Plant a Neem Tree and Explore Neem benefits

#Food_Forest #Remedies #Discover

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Date: 15 Oct 2025

There is always the garden

There is always the garden

🌳 There is always the garden



"When the world wearies and society fails to satisfy, there is always the garden"... [and cats!] - Minnie Aumonier

🐈📸 Cats Timo and Matilda at TopTropicals PeopleCats.Garden.

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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Date: 4 Jul 2019

Super RARE: the Honduran Moon-Torch Cactus

by Mark Hooten, the Garden Doc

The most wonderful, easily growing, giant flowering, fragrant, and floriferous species of Selenicereus I have grown is an almost unknown species called Selenicerius hondurensis.  While its climbing stems are rarely thicker than a Sharpie marker, it's flowers measure 12 to 14 inches across (!), open as the sun is setting, and produce a most incredible fragrance... very rich and spreading thru the area. It smells like a combination of both white chocolate and vanilla. S. hondurensis also develops the most richly colored flowers of the Selenicerei, the outermost petals being a glowing orangey-gold. It's very stunning and provocative!  It flowers magnificently, several times during the summer... Continue reading...

Recommended fertilizers:

Tropical Greenhouse Plus - Plant Booster
Tropical Allure - Smart-Release Booster

Picture of the actual plants for sale: