Avocado Tree

Good for you! But I'm guessing you'll always have to take it indoors for fall and winter?

That's for sure Raquel. If I lived in your area I would be able to leave it outside.

How big will yours get? In El Salvador avocado trees seem to grow pretty big...

I will always keep it in a pot so it could easily grow to 8 feet or so but I dont think I will let it get that tall. I will keep cutting it back so that it stays around 5 to 6 feet tall. Cutting it back will also help it to get fuller.

How big does your pot have to be? I have a container garden but I've been kind of scared to grow plants that get big - like trees!

Hi Raquel, How big a pot to grow an avocado ? If so it doesn't have to be all that big. You could have one in an 8 to 10 inch pot for quite a long time. Right now mine is in a pot that is 12 inches high and 10 inches wide and it can stay in that size for a long time. You should try starting one. Not sure if you know how but what you do is buy an avocado and cut it open being careful not to cut at the seed. Wash off the seed really good and hen take three tooth picks and push them in on the sides of the seed. You would want to push them in evenly around the seed and half way up the seed. All you need is like a jam or jelly jar and you can sit the seed on top of the jar. Fill the jar with water all the way up so that the bottom half of the seed is under water and have the seed pointed side up. They root fairly quickly and the seed will split a little and a tap root will start growing downwards in the water. Eventually the seed will split at the top and a stem will start to grow. When the stem is about 6 inches high that's the time to plant it in a pot and place it so that the top half of the seed is above the soil like it was in the water. When the stem reaches about 10 inches tall that's when you will want to cut the stem back to half it's height. Very painful to do this after watching it grow but this will make it branch out which is what you want. It should sprout two to three new branches. After that it will start getting taller and wider and every once and a while you will want to clip it back a bit. Doing that makes it grow more branches and it will be fuller...

Thanks Mikec I will have to try it...I didn't know how it was done, so your instructions are really useful - I will copy them...thank you so much!