Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

Date: 19 Dec 2025

Ten best shrubs for winter colors

💐 Ten best shrubs for winter colors



🛒 Explore Winter bloomers

#Hedges_with_benefits #Discover

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Date: 19 Dec 2025

13 festive shrubs with bright flowers that bring color to your Winter Garden when everything else is dormant

13 festive shrubs with bright flowers that bring color to your Winter Garden when everything else is dormant
💐 13 festive shrubs with bright flowers that bring color to your Winter Garden when everything else is dormant

Southern Living points to colorful berries as winter garden standbys. Tropical plants take it a step further, filling the cool season with real flowers, not just fruit. From vivid reds to electric blues, these plants prove winter does not have to be dull.

  • 🌈 1. Gloxinia sylvatica - Bolivian Sunset

    • This plant waits for cool weather, then suddenly lights up the shade with fire-red blooms. Flowers appear almost overnight and continue through fall and winter. It rests in summer, returns in fall, spreads gently, and makes an easy, festive ground cover that is perfect for sharing.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 2. Pereskia aculeata - Barbados gooseberry

    • An unusual vine that surprises in cool weather with delicate, star-shaped blooms followed by tasty fruit. It flowers steadily from fall through winter, adding light, airy color to fences and trellises when most vines are quiet.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 3. Mansoa alliacea - garlic vine

    • Best known for its garlicky scent, this vine really shines in winter. Cooler temperatures bring clusters of lavender-purple flowers that brighten fences and trellises with very little effort.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 4. Dombeya wallichii - tropical hydrangea

    • Large pink pompom blooms hang from bare branches in winter, creating a true holiday look. Lightly fragrant and impossible to miss, it brings hydrangea-style drama to the cool season.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 5. Brunfelsia pauciflora Compacta - dwarf yesterday-today-tomorrow

    • Compact and cheerful, this shrub opens purple flowers that fade to lavender and white. The color shift makes it look like several plants blooming at once, perfect for pots or small garden spaces.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 6. Clerodendrums

    • Long, cascading sprays of white flowers of Clerodendrum minahassae - fountain clerodendrum - spill from the plant during the cooler months. It brightens shaded areas and adds movement when the garden slows down. Most clerodendrums bloom through Winter!

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 7. Tibouchina multiflora - glory bush

    • Soft, fuzzy purple blooms cover this shrub in winter, backed by velvety leaves that look good year-round. It adds strong color and texture during the cool season.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 8. Holmskioldia sanguinea - Chinese hat

    • Bright red, orange or yellow, hat-shaped bracts surround small flowers and hold their color through the cool months. The shape alone makes this shrub a standout in winter.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 9. Barleria cristata - Philippine violet

    • This tough shrub blooms heavily in winter with rich purple flowers. It delivers dependable color when many plants take a break. There is a golden variety too!

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 10. Eranthemum pulchellum - blue sage, lead flower

    • Few plants offer true blue in winter. Electric-blue flower spikes appear in cool weather, adding rare color with minimal care.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 11. Petrea volubilis - queen's wreath

    • In winter, this woody vine erupts into cascading sprays of lavender star-shaped flowers. It creates a wisteria-like effect right when the garden needs it most.

👉 Learn more

  • 🌈 12. Tabebuia varieties - dwarf golden and dwarf pink

    • These trees save their show for winter, blooming on bare branches. Golden forms glow yellow, while pink varieties cover themselves in soft trumpet-shaped flowers.

👉 Learn more

🌈 13. Bauhinia trees - pink butterfly and Hong Kong orchid trees
Butterfly-shaped blooms open on leafless branches, giving bauhinias their signature winter elegance. The Hong Kong orchid tree stands out with especially large, vivid flowers.

🛒 Explore Winter bloomers

📚 Learn more:

#Hedges_with_benefits #Discover

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Date: 9 Dec 2025

What blooms for you in December: Calliandra tweedii With Love

Calliandra tweedii "With Love" in a pot

Calliandra tweedii "With Love" in a pot

Calliandra tweedii "With Love" plant in the ground

Calliandra tweedii "With Love" plant in the ground

Calliandra tweedii "With Love" flowers

Calliandra tweedii "With Love" flowers

Calliandra tweedii "With Love" flower close up

Calliandra tweedii "With Love" flower close up

💥 What blooms for you in December: Calliandra tweedii "With Love"
  • 💥 December just started and so did Calliandra tweedii "With Love" - right by TopTropicals Bfarm office. This plant always knows how to kick off winter around here. First week of December… boom, the red tassels pop open, and then it keeps going all the way through winter and into spring.
  • 💥 Calliandras are famous for being spectacular winter bloomers, but in our garden they seem to ignore the calendar and flower pretty much year-round. "With Love" grows as a many-stemmed dense shrub, kind of like a small fountain. Branches rise right from the ground, covered in tiny leaflets that gently fold at night or when you touch them.
  • 💥 And the flowers - that’s the whole show! Fine, feathery, glowing-red tassels that look almost electric in the morning sun. The bush by the office is covered in them right now - bright scarlet puffs against fresh green foliage. Most calliandras lean more pink, but this one stays true red. It makes a fantastic hedge, a bold specimen shrub, and honestly a great bonsai because of the branching structure.
  • 💥 If you want something cheerful, easy, and blooming exactly when most gardens look quiet, With Love delivers every single year.


🛒 Plant Calliandra tweedii "With Love" - Red Tassel Flower
Shop Calliandras - Powderpuffs

📚 Learn more:

#Hedges_with_benefits #Butterfly_Plants

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Date: 29 Nov 2025

What will bloom for you in November: Gardenia nitida - Shooting Star

Gardenia nitida - Shooting Star

Gardenia nitida - Shooting Star

Gardenia nitida - Shooting Star

Gardenia nitida - Shooting Star

⭐️ What will bloom for you in November: Gardenia nitida - Shooting Star
  • ⭐️ It's end of November and let's see what's in bloom today.

    • Gardenia nitida - the Shooting Star Gardenia - is looking absolutely perfect right now. This is one of the most unusual gardenias you’ll ever run into. Native to tropical Africa, slow-growing, elegant, and honestly… it doesn’t even look like the regular gardenias people are used to.
  • ⭐️ The leaves are the first giveaway. Instead of the thick, waxy look of common gardenias, this one has big, soft, diamond-shaped leaves that give the whole plant a delicate, almost tropical-orchid vibe. The shrubs grow into neat, rounded shapes, so they do great in containers or smaller garden spaces.
  • ⭐️ And the blooms… they’re happening right now! Long, skinny white tubes that flare open into bright little starbursts. They show up in clusters, and when the sun hits them, they really do look like tiny shooting stars across the plant. The fragrance is sweet, rich, and drifting all over the walkway even before you get close.
  • ⭐️ It blooms several times a year, but this moment - right now, heading into winter - is one of its best. If you like rare fragrant plants, this is one of those collector pieces you don’t see every day, especially looking this full and this fresh.


🛒 Get the Shooting Star to light up your garden in Winter

📚 Learn more:
More about Gardenia nitida from Plant Encyclopedia

📱 Watch YouTube short videos:

#Perfume_Plants #Hedges_with_benefits

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Date: 26 Nov 2025

Do this if you want to smell a dizzy perfume!

Night blooming jasmine, Cestrum nocturnum

✨ Do this if you want to smell a dizzy perfume!
  • ⭐️ Night blooming jasmine, Cestrum nocturnum, is one of those plants people get obsessed with once they smell it. The fragrance doesn’t play around - the tiny flowers open after dark and fill the whole yard with a sweet, powerful, almost dizzy perfume. You want some serious fragrance? Do this: get yourself a night blooming jasmine!
  • ⭐️ The crazy part? It’s in the Nightshade family, related to tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers. But it acts nothing like a veggie. This shrub grows fast, stays dense, and turns into a nighttime perfume machine during warm months.
  • ⭐️ Flowers are pale yellow to white and stay insanely fragrant until sunrise. In India and across South Asia they use them for weddings, ceremonies, and perfumery because the scent is that intense.
  • ⭐️ If you want the full effect, plant it near a window, a porch, or a walkway. Anywhere you pass by at night. One or two plants are enough to make your whole garden smell like romance after dark!


🛒 Make your yard smell like romance!

📚 Learn more:
📱

#Perfume_Plants #Hedges_with_benefits

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Date: 16 Nov 2025

How to bring butterflies in your garden with Ditchmans Pipe

Aristolochia trilobata - Birthwort Dutchman's Pipe

How to bring butterflies in your garden with Ditchmans Pipe
  • 🐙 Aristolochia trilobata - Birthwort Dutchman's Pipe, is one of the most striking butterfly plants. The brown-and-green, pitcher-shaped flowers with long striped tails look like something from another world, and the glossy lobed leaves give the vine a bold, tropical look.
  • 🐙 What makes this plant truly special is how butterflies respond to it. They are drawn to the scent of the flowers and use the vine as a host plant, laying their eggs on the leaves. If you want butterflies, this is one of the easiest ways to bring them in and support their full life cycle.
  • 🐙 This vine is tough and adaptable. It grows well in subtropical climates, handles low light, and can even be kept indoors. Give it a trellis or a fence and it quickly turns into a showpiece.
  • 🐙 Beautiful, unusual, and a butterfly favorite - Dutchmans Pipe is a natural magnet for life in your garden.


🛒 Bring butterflies to your garden!

📚 Learn more:

#Butterfly_Plants #Hedges_with_benefits #How_to

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Date: 10 Nov 2025

Youll never guess what flower it is!

Golden Rain - variegated Tabernaemontana

👀 You’ll never guess what flower it is!
  • ✨ If you think you’ve seen every tropical shrub out there, meet Golden Rain - a rare variegated Tabernaemontana that instantly steals the show.
  • ✨ What makes it special:

    • The leaves are a work of art – green with golden or silvery streaks that shimmer in sunlight. The white, fragrant flowers appear in clusters, adding perfume to its beauty. Compact and rounded, it’s perfect for containers or small gardens. And it’s flexible too – thriving in both full sun and partial shade.
  • ✨ How to grow it:

    • Give it bright light, well-draining soil, and regular watering with brief drying between. It’s tropical-friendly, so protect it from frost. In zones 9 and up, it’s easy to grow outdoors. Place it somewhere visible – the golden foliage deserves attention.
  • ✨ Why you’ll love it:

Because it’s rare. Because it smells amazing. Because those leaves look like they’ve been brushed with sunlight. Golden Rain is one of those plants that makes everyone stop and ask, "What is THAT?"

🛒 Get your own Golden Rain before it's gone

#Perfume_Plants #Hedges_with_benefits #Container_Garden

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Date: 6 Nov 2025

You thought you knew Gardenias, until you saw this one!

Gardenia nitida (Posoqueria), Shooting Star Gardenia

⭐️ You thought you knew Gardenias, until you saw this one!
  • ⭐️ Gardenia nitida (Posoqueria), Shooting Star Gardenia, is one of the most unusual gardenias you’ll ever see! Native to tropical Africa, it is a rare and elegant shrub that’s as fascinating as it is fragrant.
  • ⭐️ Unlike common gardenias with thick, waxy foliage, this one has large, diamond-shaped leaves that feel soft and delicate. The plant grows slowly into a rounded form, making it perfect for containers or small gardens.
  • ⭐️ When it blooms, the show is unforgettable. The long, tubular white flowers burst out in clusters, looking like tiny shooting stars against glossy green leaves. The scent is rich, sweet, and exotic - filling the air even from a distance.
  • ⭐️ Blooming several times a year, this gardenia lights up your garden whenever it decides to put on a show. A true collector’s piece for those who love rare, fragrant plants that stand out from the crowd.


🛒 Add these stars with scent to your collection

📚 Learn more:
Shooting Star Gardenia: a rare scent from Africa

#Perfume_Plants #Hedges_with_benefits

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Date: 2 Nov 2025

Winter flowering trees and shrubs - all you need for winter color in your garden

🌺 Winter flowering trees and shrubs - all you need for winter color in your garden.

Many snowbirds ask what to plant when they’re here just for the season. The answer is simple: go for trees and shrubs that bloom in winter. Fall is the perfect time to plant them, so your garden bursts with flowers once the cool season arrives.

📱 We put everything in one place for you!
Check out this single YouTube Post with all our favorite winter-blooming trees and shrubs - your shortcut to a colorful garden this season:
http://youtube.com/post/UgkxRWCHqNDqrRIIwK_BAeWjfi3spnZK0EbA?si=LbNv_RhkKGkc0rxv
Save it for later and share it with your garden friends.

🌸 Videos on Winter flowering trees and shrubs:
👉 See more...

🛒 Want to grow your own winter color garden?

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Date: 19 Oct 2025

Many faces of hibiscus

Hibiscus plants: schizopetalus - Coral Hibiscus, Cotton Candy - Mallow Hibiscus, Double Red - Double Rose of Sharon, Apricot Brandy, El Capitolio Tequila Sunrise, El Capitolio Bloody Mary

Hibiscus plants: schizopetalus - Coral Hibiscus, Cotton Candy - Mallow Hibiscus, Double Red - Double Rose of Sharon, Apricot Brandy, El Capitolio Tequila Sunrise, El Capitolio Bloody Mary

🌺 Many faces of hibiscus

📸 Pictures for the previous post:

❓ What is your favorite Hibiscus plant?

🛒 Explore Hibiscus species and varieties

#Hedges_with_benefits

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