Date: 31 Oct 2025
👻 When plants grow wings...
🌴 Twilight in the garden. Smokey is holding a glowing pumpkin. Sunshine is sipping cocoa.
Sunshine: "Smokey, why does that plant look like it wants to fly away?"
Smokey: "That’s the Bat Lily - Tacca. It’s rare, it’s
weird, and it’s in bloom just in time for Halloween."
Sunshine: "Figures. You always find the spooky ones."
Meet the Bat Lily (Tacca)
Tacca is also called the Bat Lily or Devil Flower. This tropical wonder grows bat-shaped wings and foot-long whiskers. The black form (Tacca chantrieri) looks straight out of a gothic dream, while the white one (Tacca nivea) is ghost-like and elegant.
Some of our plants are blooming right now in the nursery — true Halloween magic! Blooms are delicate and may not travel, but the plants are strong and will flower again soon in your care.
Black Bat Lily (Tacca chantrieri) with dark maroon wings and long whiskers
White Bat Lily (Tacca nivea) in bloom with wide ivory wings
"The White Bat Lily (Tacca nivea) is bold and sculptural, with oversized
ivory wings that command attention. Its pale bracts stretch wide above
clusters
of deep maroon flowers, and long, silvery whiskers spill gracefully through
the foliage. In filtered light, the plant seems to glow from within —
elegant, crisp, and perfectly balanced between the strange and the
beautiful.
If I could pick, I’d go with the White Tacca. It feels more
architectural, more balanced — those oversized wings catch light in a
way that
shows off every vein and curve. It looks engineered by nature, almost like
an
alien design prototype that actually works.
The Black Bat Lily (Tacca chantrieri) feels alive with shadow. Its dark
maroon wings and wiry whiskers make it look like something that fluttered
out of
the jungle at dusk. The bloom’s layered structure and near-black sheen
give it a quiet power — mysterious, understated, but impossible to
ignore. But if I were designing mood lighting for a greenhouse at night, the
Black Tacca wins. It’s subtle, mysterious, like a secret only visible
up
close. Together, they’re perfect opposites — yin and yang of the
tropical underworld: white for daylight, black for moonlight." — says
Tatiana Anderson, Top Tropicals Plant Expert
Special Offer: Discounts on Rare Tacca Plants
Grow your own Bat Lilies — White or Black — at a special Halloween price!
Get 25% OFF Tacca plants with code
TACCA2025
Min order $25 (excluding S/H), valid online only, cannot be combined with other offers.
Hurry, offer expires November 03, 2025!
🎃 Storewide Halloween Sale – For Everything Beyond Tacca
Not into spooky plants? Enjoy savings on all other tropical plants across the store!
Get 15% OFF tropical plants with code
HALLOWEEN2025
Min order $100 (excluding S/H), valid online only, cannot be combined with other offers.
Hurry, offer expires November 03 2025!
👉 Collect Tacca plants:
Date: 27 Jan 2026
🌸 Adenium, Coffee, and Donuts
Sunshine: So it is a team plant. Everyone blooms, nobody agrees.
Smokey: Yet it grows just fine.
Sunshine: That is the secret. Coffee and donuts.
🌸Featured Adeniums
Recommended by our Horticulturist, Tatiana Anderson
Deep magenta flowers with a velvety look and a darker, almost black edge. A bold, elegant adenium that stands out immediately.
Bright yellow and mauve swirls across layered petals create a warm, cheerful bloom that lives up to its name.
Clean white petals brushed with playful pink streaks. A reliable bloomer
with soft ruffled flowers.
Known for its three-color effect, shifting from yellow to pink to nearly white on the same plant.
Cheerful yellow petals dipped in cherry red with bold ruffled layers. Bright, playful, and impossible to miss.
Nearly black petals with a glowing red center. Dark, dramatic, and different.
Date: 21 Aug 2025
🍒 Tropical Cherries – Eugenias
Tropical Tea Time with Grumichama
Eugenias have earned a spot in many Southern gardens because they’re easy, dependable, and surprisingly versatile. These small trees and shrubs grow well in the ground or in containers, and they don’t waste time before setting fruit.
15% Off Eugenias – Limited Time
Use code EUGENIA15 at checkout.
Excluding S/H. Offer expires 08/28/2025
👍 Popular Choices:
What Makes Eugenia Cherries Stand Out
- Start producing fruit in just a couple of years
- Compact size — easy to keep 6–12 ft tall, smaller in pots
- Low-care — tolerant of most soils and resistant to common pests
- Strong in hot weather, yet can handle a light frost down to the mid-20s °F
- Plenty of fruit for people and birds alike
Grumichama Tree in Bloom – Eugenia brasiliensis
Growing & Care
Outdoors
- Best in USDA Zones 9–11
- Sun or partial shade; more sun usually means sweeter fruit
- Plant in well-drained soil; avoid heavy, wet spots
- Withstands summer heat and humidity, and can take a light freeze
Container / Indoor
- Do well in 5–10 gallon pots on patios or balconies
- Need bright light indoors — a sunny window or grow lights
- Can flower and fruit in containers if kept warm and well lit
- In cooler zones, bring plants indoors for winter and back out in spring
General Care
- Water: Keep soil evenly moist; drought-tolerant once established but best yields with regular watering
- Soil: Use good potting mix - LINK TO SOIL
- Fertilizer: Balanced slow-release LINKL TO FERTILIZER Sunshine Boosters
- Pruning: Light trimming keeps plants bushy and productive
- Pollination: Self-fertile; one plant will fruit on its own
Read Garden Blog about Tropical Cherries
Date: 13 Feb 2017
New Video. Radio Top Tropicals.
New Video: 10 plants that will make you happy, Plant #2 - Candle Tree.
We continue your series about Ten Plants That Will Make You Happy. Today's story is about Candle Tree... one of the most fascinating ornamental and fruit trees in cultivation. This unusual plant will be a conversation piece of your plant collection. Happy candles will help you to cope with a cold and will definitely make you happy.
Visit our Facebook, YouTube Channel and stay happy!
Check out this video: 10 plants that will make you happy. Plant #2 - Candle Tree.
Stay updated with TopTropicals Videos by subscribing to our channel at YouTube.com/TopTropicals and get our latest video news of what's fruiting and blooming!
Radio Top Tropicals - every Saturday 11 am! Introducing Radio Top Tropicals. Our first live webcast last Saturday was a success.
The topic was Plants of Love - Aphrodisiacs.
The webcast followed our Valentine's Day local sale.
We are extending this sale for 2 days, from local customers, to those who live in other states. Hurry up and take advantage of this generous 25% off on Plants of Love - Aphrodisiacs! Sale ends end of Valentines day, Tuesday, February 14.
Our next air time: Saturday February 18, at 11 am.
Topic: WEED OR WONDER PLANT?
We will explore plants considered invasive species, or weeds, here in Florida, and reveal interesting and not-so-well-known facts about them. Our Host Robert Riefer - State Certified Crop Adviser, and Weed Specialist - answering all your gardening questions.
Listen to Radio Top Tropicals, every Saturday, at 11 am! You may use our website radio player DURING AIR TIME and see the pictures of plants we are talking about. To ask questions using live chat, you need to log in at Mixlr.com or simply call our office 239-689-5745 during air time!
Check out our upcoming radio shows
Date: 15 Dec 2016
SUNSHINE in a Bottle
SUNSHINE-H - plant booster for house plants specially formulated for plants grown indoors:
- protect from insects and improve disease resistance,
- improve tolerance of indoor plants to low light, and low humidity conditions;
- maintain healthy dormancy of seasonal species and help to rapidly break dormancy in Spring.
Directions:Mix with distilled water as follows: 2.5 ml to 1 gal. Spray traditional house plants - once in 2 weeks, tropical plants overwintering indoors, including woody ornamentals and potted fruit trees - once a week, leafy herbaceous perennials - once a month.
SUNSHINE in a Bottle - effective plant stimulant from new line of plant boosters, the representative of a new generation of agricultural chemicals. Developed by TT Laboratories LLC and designed specifically for applications on tropical plants. Can be used as well on seeds, seedlings, and small vegetable plants (completely organic and safe). It is proved to be a magic growth promoter, improves cold hardiness and heat tolerance of tropical plants.
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See page about SUNSHINE.
Order SUNSHINE boosters