Growing avocados at home
Today you will not surprise anyone with the presence of tropical plants in a house or apartment. One of these exotic crops is the avocado or “alligator pear”. This wonderful tree is grown in its homeland to obtain healthy avocado fruits, but in the house it serves more for decorative purposes.
Read the article: how to grow an avocado?
Differences between home and garden avocado
In nature, an adult avocado is impressive in size. Often these are huge, 20-meter high trees, the main value of which is fruits. At home, the avocado also grows very quickly, its annual growth can reach 1 m. Despite this, the height of an adult tree rarely exceeds 2.5 m due to the limited space of the pot.
In general, this is an evergreen culture, but even if the leaves fall off, soon new ones appear on the branches. Avocados, like all tropical crops, are very fond of warmth, so in the local climate it grows mainly indoors or in greenhouses.
In regions with a warm climate, the tub can be taken out into the open air for the summer, but drafts, which are detrimental to avocados, must be avoided.
In indoor conditions, the plant blooms and bears fruit very rarely and not earlier than 4 years of life, and the fruits are of modest size compared to garden specimens.
Landing features
For the propagation of avocados, the seed method is used, since cuttings are very difficult to take root, and it is very difficult to get them. But you can buy fresh and ripe avocados in stores almost all year round. A bone removed from it serves as an excellent seed material, it germinates almost always, although this will take a lot of time (from 1 to 6 months). But the new plant will retain all varietal characteristics.
There are two ways to germinate a bone:
- in water;
- in a nutritious loose substrate, consisting of sand, earth and humus in equal proportions.
In both cases, the seed must be immersed in half, and when germinating in water, it must not touch the bottom of the container. For this, cardboard is adjusted or the bone is lowered into the water by weight, using toothpicks as a support.
After a certain time, the bone will increase in size and open, and a pink sprout will grow from the crack.
Care features
Besides the warmth avocado needs abundant and frequent watering and spraying. The only exception is the wintering period, especially if it takes place in a cool room. The lower the room temperature, the less often the plant should be watered.
Regular pruning of the tree is a prerequisite for growing avocados at home. Without it, the crown will be rare, and the plant itself will stretch out. To do this, in the spring after 8 leaves, you need to pinch the shoots. The emerging lateral branches are pinched after 5 leaves.
The rapid growth of avocados requires an annual sapling. Large specimens are reloaded once every three years.