The Persea Americana, commonly called avocado or avocado, it is a tree of the Lauraceae family and native to Mexico and Guatemala, known and cultivated today in a great variety of countries for its fruit, the avocado or avocado. It is a species that can exceed 12 meters in height, but it is perfectly possible to grow it in a pot, where it reaches much smaller spans. Its cultivation requires a lot of patience, since it can take many years to see an avocado in a pot with fruits, but the wait is definitely worth it.
If you want to learn how to care for a potted avocado, join us in this Green Ecologist article where you will find a complete and practical guide to the potted avocado care.
When and how to plant avocado in a pot
Planting an avocado from seed is a process that many of us have done at some time as a school project or as a simple experiment to see how it germinates, since it is one of the plants that allows us to better observe the process. If you want germinate and plant a potted avocado pit take note:
- To start, you need the seed of an avocado. It is what is commonly called the pit of the fruit and serves any avocado in good condition that you have eaten. Clean the seed well of fruit remains and notice that it has a pointed end, which will be the one that goes up, and a flat end, which is the bottom, where the root will grow.
- Prepare 3 or 4 round toothpicks and stick them in the seed, if possible in a slightly downward trajectory. This is done because only the bottom of the base should be submerged, and the downward slope allows the entire base to be properly under water.
- Put the seed on a glass with water, which thanks to the toothpicks will be held above the water. Adjust the water level so that about the bottom half of the seed is submerged.
- Place the glass in a bright area but covered from direct sunlight and change the water in the glass at least once a week to avoid the appearance of fungi or diseases that can affect your avocado.
- When the sprout shows the first leaves, you can already plant it in a pot. For this, you will need to prepare the pot, the substrate and place the germinated bone well. We recommend that you follow the more detailed steps that you will see in the transplant section.
In addition, we advise you to read this other post on How to germinate an avocado.
How to transplant a potted avocado
When it comes to transplanting a potted avocado, the first transplant is logically the most important. So much for plant a potted avocado for the first time to do your transplant because it has grown enough and needs a little more space, follow these indications:
- Prepare a good size pot with drainage holes and a slightly acidic substrate, with a pH between 5 and 7. A mixture of peat, coconut fiber, worm castings and a good addition of perlite works very well with this plant. .
- Make a hole for the small avocado and do not completely bury what is left of the fruit, leaving the entire root under the ground and making sure that it is the birth of the stem that marks approximately the level of the ground.
- Later you will only need to transplant your tree again when the container is too small and you will have to follow the same process.
Here you can learn much more about How to plant an avocado and when and how to transplant a plant.
Pot location
Another of the most important potted avocado care is your location. In deciding whether put the avocado plant in a pot indoors or outdoors, we must attend to the local climate. The avocado is a tree with a tropical or Mediterranean climate, so it cannot stand the cold. In areas with temperatures below 10 ºC you will need to place your avocado indoors, protected from the cold of winter. It also does not withstand temperatures above 30 ºC or very direct intense sun, which could burn the leaves.
Watering the avocado in a pot
Irrigation is another of the most important of the potted avocado tree care. This species does not tolerate waterlogging, so it is very important that the prepared substrate offers very good drainage and that the pot has holes.
How much to water a potted avocado? There is no universal formula because it depends on the climate and the substrate, but it is necessary that you maintain the avocado soil with a certain level of humidity. If you notice that the substrate is dry, water it. It is better to do it very often and in little quantity than the other way around: large risks can puddle and damage your avocado. If the leaves of your avocado start to turn brown at the tips, you have to water more because the plant is drying out.
Here you can see more tips on when to water the plants.
Compost for potted avocado
Regarding the subscriber, provide a new layer of worm castings to the surface of the substrate at the beginning of spring and again at the beginning of summer it will be enough to provide the tree with the nutrients it needs.
In this other post you can learn How to make worm castings and here you will learn How to make homemade organic compost for plants.
How to prune a potted avocado
The first pruning of the avocado It can be done when it is still in the glass of water, when the bud is about 15 cm. Pruning it when it is this long and doing it in the middle will make it regrow more strongly, and when it reaches a similar height to what it was previously you can transplant it to the ground.
Later, when the tree is young but has already grown enough, structure, maintenance and fruiting pruning will be practiced. The maintenance pruning They simply consist of removing the branches and dry or bad-looking parts so that the plant does not waste energy on them. The structure and fruiting pruning They consist of giving the tree a suitable shape so that it grows according to the available space and so that it is easy to collect its fruits. About when to prune a potted avocado, remember that it is better to always do it at Start of Spring.
Now that you know all these potted avocado care, we encourage you to learn even more by reading these other Green Ecologist guides on Avocado Pests and Diseases and How to graft an avocado and when to do it.
If you want to read more articles similar to Potted avocado care, we recommend that you enter our category of Cultivation and care of plants.
