Date: 19 Oct 2022
Project Ian
A letter from a gardener:
"We just want our paradise back!"
"...My name is Ian, and I am a 21 y/o Natural Resource Management
student at South Dakota State University. In 2006, my family found a small
barrier island lush with foliage and virtually untouched by the modern world, and
we fell in love. Little Gasparilla Island became a piece of our family and
now after 16 years, we still spend months out of each year enjoying the
island's natural beauty.
Enter Hurricane Ian.
With the eye of the hurricane traveling directly over the island, many
homes and materialistic items were destroyed, but more importantly, the once
beautiful"jungle"is now more comparable to a barren desert.
This is where I was hoping to get some help... to restore the beauty of
Little Gasparilla. After almost 3 weeks, neither the county nor FEMA has made it
out to survey our island. And it is almost as if we feel forgotten. After
fending for ourselves for clean-up, I am ready to get to work on landscaping.
Plants are my passion and it pains me each day to wake up and see that 90% of
our Australian and Norfolk Island Pines are completely gone, along with most
foliage and palms.
We just want our paradise back, and many of us will work for it by any
means necessary..."
We replied to Ian who suffered from Ian... We are willing to help his beautiful island, as well as everyone who is looking for help restoring our Florida beauty. Check out our deals and re-leaf discounts we send in our Newsletters. Remember to attend our Garden Festival on Nov 19, with some big discounts as well as free plants for after-Ian re-leaf!
We will make Florida beautiful again.
We will call it Project Ian!
Date: 16 Oct 2022
This Fall Special:
Avocados and Champakas in large containers
The clean-up and restoration after Hurricane Ian continues for many of us across Florida and the Southeast. Some people In SW Florida lost their homes, and almost every home owner lost a tree or even the whole garden. TopTropicals is here to help. We started introducing special Re-Leaf offers to help local gardeners replace broken trees. When it's time to restore your garden, we have 15-25 gallon Avocado trees in many varieties and oversized Magnolia Champaca trees available for pick up at our Fort Myers Garden Center or B-Farm in Sebring.
These trees are 6-8 feet tall (some larger) and ready to bear fruit!
Please call or visit our Garden Center to select your own tree.
Delivery and installation available
Limited time offer!
Date: 13 Aug 2020
An unknown Florida native Swamp Lily?
Crinum americanum Punta Rassa Giant
by Mark Hooten, the Garden Doc
This unknown Florida native form of Crinum americanum might actually
represent an unpublished species! We have a few of these, they are very special
and now nearly 2 years old plants.
This most beautiful and fragrant of Florida's native lilies, most commonly
known simply as "Swamp Lily", has a very wide native range, extending from
the Everglades northward across all of the Gulf states. While being wide-spread
in distribution, natural colonies generally occur widely separated from one
another, often by miles. Because isolation of breeding populations often
leads to speciation due to intense in-breeding, many of these populations develop
traits which make them distinct...
CONTINUE READING >>
Date: 7 Aug 2020
Top Tropicals Golden Reaper
Gold Carolina Reaper pepper plants
by Mark Hooten, the Garden Doc
Because only people who are already well informed about SUPER HOT chili varieties are likely to be curious about these, there is no need for discussion about the history of what could be termed the "Hot Chili Wars"... Anyone reading this likely knows the chili variety which currently holds the official world's record for heat is a red one called 'Carolina Reaper'. They have a very unusual shape and texture.
Our distinct variety - Gold Carolina Reaper Pepper - originated from a batch of seeds of the
regular red fruited 'Carolina Reaper' (received directly from the breeder).
Out of the regular red fruited seedlings grew a plant producing truly brilliant
orange-gold colored fruits. As this plant was much more healthy, vigorous,
and productive than the normal red ones, (even producing considerably larger
fruits and just as searingly hot), we segregated and isolated that one. Seeds
from that specimen were then grown out to see the result, which, happily all
came out exactly identical to and as vigorous as the original gold parent.
Our plants have been grown from those.
We have very strong plants beginning to bud-up!
Date: 2 Aug 2020
Macaranga grandifolia - Elephant Ear Tree
The very quintessence of tropical foliage luxury
by Mark Hooten, the Garden Doc
Why is this wonderful little tree so unknown here in Florida? I can only guess it's because people don't see them, and therefor don't know about them, and that basically no nurseries grow them. Yet it's one of the most utterly spectacular foliage plants conceivable... Provided with an appropriately warm climate such as South Florida or elsewhere, there is no reason they should not be seen more often (for purposes of utter awe).
CONTINUE READING >>
Macaranga's genuinely grand foliage much more resembles the ears of actual elephants (esp. the Asian species) than do the leaves of the much more commonly known and grown "elephant ears" meaning certain Alocasia and Colocasia