A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The House Plant Forum got two avacodo pits

I was given a gift of 2 avacodo pits from my mom. I plan on growing them in water first and then planting them in soil. Any tips or subjestions please.

Since you've got 2 pits, why don't you try rooting one in water, the other directly in soil. Little experiments can be quite fun.

has anyone on here every gotten a full grown avacado tree from a pit?

Keep the pointy side up and root the pit. The stem and leaves will sprout out the top and the root will push its way out the bottom. Push four toothpick into the sides of the avocado pit. Place the avocado pit over your dish, so the toothpicks are resting on the rim of the dish and the pit is suspended over the center. If it’s not sitting well, wiggle your toothpicks around a little so they’re tilted up slightly. Fill the dish with water so that the avocado pit is about halfway submersed and change the water every day or two, so that the pit is constantly sitting in water.

Keep your avocado pit on a sunny windowsill. Remember until you plant your avocado sapling in soil, you need to keeping the pit in water at all times. After about three weeks or so, the top of the pit should begin to split open. Over the next few weeks, a stem will shoot up, the first leaves will begin to grow, and roots will begin to force their way out of the bottom. In a few more weeks, you should see more leaves. The whole process will generally take about 3 months. When your tree is maybe 7-8 inches tall, nip off the top few leaves plant them in a pot with potting soil.

Shirley, have you had an actual avocado tree grow to full size this way?

I used to send my preschooler out to plant avocado seeds wherever she wanted. That seemed to be most often in our dirt pathways. As they grew I would pick them up and transplant in a more protected place. I would also dig them up and share them with friends and neighbors. That former toddler is 21 now and I have 3 full sized trees still growing. I got tiny little fruits off of one last year. These are not grafted onto hearty rootstock not was any thought given to pollinators. But they make pretty trees.

way cool Tina

The best avocado I ever grew from a pit - in the house - was huge. It grew up to the ceiling and I had to keep pruning it back, and it branched out to a diameter of 5 or 6', which I kept it trimmed to. It was grown from a very large, green avocado, and I rooted it directly in the soil, not in water. This works fine as long as you keep the soil nice and moist. But like I said, that's the best one I ever grew. I've had others that didn't grow nearly as tall, or sprouted but pooped out along the way, or didn't sprout at all. I've concluded that the potential for sprouting in any given avocado pit varies wildly. So the moral of the story is, if you want to grow an avocado tree, try every pit you can.