Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

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This unknown Florida native form of Crinum americanum might actually represent an unpublished species!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...

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Date: 7 Aug 2020

Healthy Plant Food

Q&A from Mr Booster

Plant food for a Star Fruit

Q: I have 2 Starfruit plants from you. One on the left is B10 has a lot of flowers but no fruit is developing. On the rite is Kenjeng. This one has no flowers at all. Both plants are growing very well. Plenty of sun and water. I am located in Boynton Beach Florida. So what to do?

A: Your trees on the pictures look very healthy, congratulations with a great care!
Starfruit, as well as other grafted fruit trees (like mango, avocado, etc) usually flower/fruit easily and readily while in pots in the nursery. Sometimes, once planted in the ground, they may reduce flowering or even stop flowering. What happened?
The answer is simple. In pots, we fertilize them on regular basis. In our nursery, we have fertilizer injector inline with irrigation system that dozes plant food with EVERY watering. In other nurseries, they may also use slow-release fertilizers, but it is still a regular routine to provide plant food to potted plants.
In the ground, especially in Florida poor soils, fruit trees may stop flowering or delay fruiting due to lack of nutrients, or dis-balance of elements in the ground. Without fertilizer, a tree may take extra time to develop bigger root system to reach out for necessary elements, and eventually will start fruiting anyway.
But we want it to fruit soon! The only way to fix the problem is to provide fertilizer on regular basis for a young tree. It is especially important during hot summer months when plant metabolism is fast due to high temperatures, plus nutrients may get washed away with frequent summer rains (like we have in Florida) even if you've added some fertilizer at time of planting.

You can use smart release fertilizer once a month during hot season, this one or similar:
Mango-Food - Smart Release Fruit Tree Booster.

But the most effective way to get a tropical tree to flowering and fruiting, is frequent applications of liquid fertilizer. We use Sunshine Boosters with every watering on our plants. They work great even on hard cases and weak plants, and you see the difference in a matter of weeks, sometimes even days.
We recommend the following fertilizer that contains all necessary elements for young fruit trees: SUNSHINE C-Cibus - Crop Nutrition Booster

SUNSHINE C-Cibus - Crop Nutrition Booster from Garden Series, or Combo Total Feed Collection - all nutrients in just one bottle, for fruit trees and edibles.

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

Sunshine Boosters: Healthy Plant Food

Q&A from Mr Booster

This year we introduced many new items to Sunshine Boosters selection - for all your plant needs in the garden. We receive lots of feedback and questions, so it is time now to share this information with all our customers and open this new section in our Newsletter -

From Mr Booster: Q&A

We promise that we will keep up with your favorite Cat of The Month blog as well!

Dry, liquid, or both?

Q: I have bought different plant boosters, and I am so exited to use them on my plants! I understand that Sunshine Boosters are better than traditional fertilizers, should I give up dry fertilizers all together, or can I continue using them? They are so easy, don't require any mixing...

A: We are all busy and it seems at first like a little bit of work with all the mixing, but it saves your time in a long run! And money too.
When we used dry fertilizers, every now and then a plant got killed, some looked undernourished (or over-fertilized) and unhappy. It was always a challenge to figure out which plant needs more and which needs less, and how often. It made us use more and more chemicals trying to adjust the feeding balance, and we had to worry about why a plant doesn't look happy. Sometimes we lost rare, valuable, collectible plants since we couldn't find a cure for their illnesses.

With Sunshine Boosters, those problems are gone now! See examples.

Compare using Sunshine Boosters with eating healthy, well-balanced food. You can still survive on junk food and won't die from starvation, but eventually eating junk food will take its toll and create health problems. So you will end up trying to fix them with more and more medicine... which in turn will create more side effects.
By using Sunshine Boosters, you provide all necessary elements and vitamins to plants without a risk of side effects or building up unnecessary junk/toxins in their system. No more leftovers!

According to tests, Sunshine Boosters are used up completely through plant metabolism, making them healthy, strong, and disease resistant. Sunshine Boosters are based on organic amino-acids which is the foundation of life on Earth. This helps to eliminate nutrients lock up in soil. See why Sunshine liquid fertilizers are better than dry fertilizers.

To answer your question, we recommend to switch to liquid Sunshine Boosters. It is possible to additionally use dry granulated "smart-release" fertilizers for in-ground plants, no more than once a month and only during hot season (Sunshine Boosters can be used year-round). However, some customers ran independent tests and admit that using Sunshine Boosters alone is more effective than in combination with dry fertilizers. See review from Karma Nursery.

Garden Series, or Combo Total Feed Collection - all nutrients in just one bottle, for different plant types. See booster in this collection, for different types of pants.

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).

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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.