How to: Grow your own avocado plant from its stone
It's easy to grow an avocado plant from the stone at home. Read on to find out how to get it started on your windowsill and how to care for it once it's growing.
Whether 'Hass' or 'Fuerte': the avocado is more popular than ever, because it is a real all-rounder. The healthy fruit adds flavor to the table, nourishes your skin and, as an indoor plant, decorates the window sill. Below, we explain how you can grow an avocado tree from a seed and how to successfully culture it at home.
Planting an avocado: This is how it's done
You can plant an avocado stone directly in a pot of soil or put it in water to get it to root. To do this, stick three toothpicks into the stone and place it on the tip-end up in a glass of water. It is important to keep it in a bright, warm place for the first few weeks, such as on a windowsill. Once enough roots have formed after a few months, the avocado can be planted in soil. Keep the soil evenly moist even when planted directly and ensure warm temperatures between 72 and 77 Β°F.
Avocado plant: the tropical tree for your windowsill
The avocado (Persea americana) is a member of the laurel family (Lauraceae). The avocado plant is native to Mexico, Central America, Peru and Brazil. Archaeological finds prove that it was already being cultivated there as a utility plant more than 8,000 years ago. The Spanish tried to cultivate the exotic fruit at the beginning of the 16th century. Avocado trees have been cultivated in Mauritius since around 1780, and in Africa only 100 years later. In Asia, avocados have been cultivated since the mid-20th century.
Due to the high demand for these healthy fruits, the avocado plant can now be found wherever the climate permits β in other words, in tropical countries around the world. A large proportion of the fruit comes from Florida and California. In suitable locations, the avocado tree can grow to a height of 65 feet. Small, light-green flowers develop in the leaf axils, which produce the popular dark-green berry fruits with the wrinkled skin some time after they have been fertilized.
Their original reproduction by seeds is no longer of interest for plant production, since the offspring run wild and thus lose their typical varietal characteristics. Instead, like most of our native fruit trees, they are cultivated by grafting. However, it is easy to grow a small tree for your windowsill from an avocado seed. Even though these home-grown avocado plants do not carry fruit, it is a wonderful experiment for children and all other plant lovers.
Planting avocado seeds: An overview of the best methods
- Grow avocado in a glass of water
- Plant avocado pit in soil
Cultivation tip: To ensure that the experiment is a success in every case, we recommend using several avocado pits for planting. Unfortunately, not every pit manages to sprout, develop strong roots and grow reliably.
Grow avocado stones in water
It is actually quite easy to get an avocado stone to germinate and sprout. The water method is particularly suitable for observing the development of an avocado plant from seed to tree. To sprout an avocado stone in water, you initially need only three toothpicks and a container with water β a preserving jar, for example. Carefully remove the stone from the fruit, wash it well and dry it. Then, at roughly equal distances, stick a toothpick about 1/4 inch into the avocado pit in three places around the center and place the bluntly egg-shaped avocado pit on the glass with the tip facing upwards. The lower third of the pit should be submerged in water. Place the glass with the pit in a bright place β a sunny windowsill is ideal β and change the water about every two days.
After about six weeks, the tip of the seed will split open and a sprout will appear. It will grow very quickly, with long, straight roots forming at the bottom. After a few months, when enough strong roots have grown from the bottom of the avocado seed and a strong, healthy shoot has grown from the top, the seed can be transferred to a flower pot with soil. Carefully remove the toothpicks and plant the seed in moist soil, taking care not to damage the roots. The avocado seed should remain on the surface, with only the roots potted.
Planting the avocado pit in soil
You can also plant the avocado pit directly in soil. To do this, simply fill a pot with soil β ideally a humus-rich, loamy potting soil β and place the clean, dry pit in it. Again, two-thirds of the avocado pit should remain above ground. A mini greenhouse for your room keeps the temperature and humidity evenly high, but is not absolutely necessary. Lightly moisten the soil and keep the seed moist by regularly spraying it. The soil in the planting pot must not dry out, otherwise all your efforts will be for nothing.
How should I care for my avocado tree?
It takes a certain amount of skill to care for young avocado plants. As a tropical plant, the avocado needs high humidity, warmth and a consistently moist substrate. If its feet get wet, it can easily get moldy! The pit then softens and rots. It is best to place your little avocado tree in a warm room (72 to 77 Β°F) by a bright window and make sure it is watered regularly.
A well-rooted avocado tree should be fertilized every 14 days during the summer months, but in the winter months it needs a rest period. Overwinter your avocado seedling at 50 to 59 Β°F in as bright a location as possible and continue watering, but only enough to keep the soil from drying out completely.
Water low in calcium or decalcified water has proven to be good for watering. If it contains too much calcium, the plant reacts with chlorosis caused by iron deficiency. However, if you fertilize the avocado plant quickly enough with iron-rich fertilizer, you can usually still save it.
In spring, the young avocado can be transplanted into a larger pot. Avocado trees usually grow as long, straight shoots. If you want your avocado to branch out, you can cut this shoot back to a height of about 12 inches on a well-rooted plant to stimulate the side buds to sprout. This way, you can train the plant to grow as a shrub or a tree.
Is it possible to grow avocados at home permanently?
Even after several years, an avocado tree in the room will not grow taller than 5 feet and often develops only a few branches from long, thin shoots. In the long term, the cultivation and care of an avocado plant works best in a heated greenhouse or conservatory: only here can you offer it βtropical conditionsβ, i.e. high humidity, lots of light and sufficient warmth. Older varieties can even be placed outside during the summer, for example in a warm and sheltered place on the terrace or balcony. But don't forget to bring the frost-sensitive tropical trees back inside again in good time β depending on the weather, it may already be too cold at night outside for the avocado at the end of August/beginning of September.
If you grow an avocado plant from a stone, it will not produce fruit. To put your mind at rest: even in its natural habitat, it takes an average of four years for the first avocados to appear. In that time, the plant will flower profusely β it just happens to have a somewhat complicated pollination process. Persea americana, as the avocado tree is scientifically known, has hermaphroditic flowers, but it cannot pollinate itself and is therefore dependent on cross-pollination. This is also difficult because the flowers open and close at different times: first to let pollen out, then to have their own ovary pollinated. But that shouldn't stop you from trying anyway! To do this, you should grow at least two plants from the seeds of different varieties β amateur gardeners have had good success with 'Fuerte' β and place them next to each other. Indoors, you usually have to help a little with the pollination by transferring the pollen from one plant to the other using a brush or cotton bud.
Is the avocado really that healthy?
Hardly any other food has experienced such a boom in recent years as the avocado. As a trendy fruit in cooking and cosmetics, it is eaten, drunk, applied and massaged. Whether as oil, spread, baking ingredient, tea, skin cream or face mask β the green fruit is more popular than ever. This is due to its valuable ingredients β including various unsaturated fatty acids, magnesium, calcium, vitamins A and C β its good processing properties and its velvety, nutty flavor. As a medicinal plant, the avocado is used to treat coughs, diarrhea, obesity and acne. Incidentally, even the avocado pit can be chopped up and added to smoothies and teas.