Growing an avocado plant

[Snooks1971]

Has anyone ever successfully done this? Not for the fruit, just for the fun of it.
I’ve had my stone hovering in water for what seems like months and it’s finally split and has grown a couple of spindly roots.

I have the Pip book. I have another one, can't remember the title, will check when I am back home. (If I remember.)

I don't think I've ever got an avocado past about 5 years, because they have become too big to stay indoors, and if it's a hard winter, don't survive.

I potted up my most recent one at the weekend. It seemed to take ages to get going. I also potted up a persimmon, which I've not tried before. Outside, I have loquats, which must be 6 or 7 years old now, an olive, a lemon, and an indeterminate citrus, possibly grapefruit, but I can't remember. And a curry leaf.

At various points over the years, I've also had a banana (from a kit), pineapples, lychee, mango, tomatillo, star fruit, lemons, oranges, ginger.

I've also got a cherry tree, apple, pear and passionruit in the garden, but they're normal gardening, not "stick this fruit pip in a pot and see if anything happens" experiments.

I've grown tomatillos. They're quite easy, I find, once they've germinated but you need at least two because they're not self fertile. Possibly not more than two though, they give masses of fruit.

Bananas - Musa Basjoo rather than Musa Cavendish are pretty solidly hardy in the UK but of course they are not a tree and bananas have no pips.

Musa Velutina (the red self peeling banana) will grow from seed but they need to be at over 15 degrees c ALL THE TIME to thrive

Loquat - I had one of those but forgot to bring it in for an autumn frost

Olive - utterly, utterly hardy but very very slow

Pineapple are easy but sharp

Thanks for this, just bought a copy!

By “large”, she means a trumpet 20cm long and 20cm wide, the sort of thing you invite friends round to see. You can watch the bud open over the course of the evening.

Yes! I have that very book. It's brilliant

I have tried growing avocados a few times. In my experience, they do better if started off in a pot of compost in the airing cupboard, rather than suspending the stone over water. If you start them in compost, remember to check them regularly, water if dry, and once a shoot appears, remove and place the pot on a sunny windowsill. I find they need to be watered quite frequently, and the leaves go brown if you let them get too dry. I put mine out in the summer and bring them in for the winter, but I think if you live somewhere with a sheltered microclimate, you could probably grow them outside in the ground quite successfully. For example, if planted against a south-facing wall in a garden in London or a coastal town in the south-west where the winters tend to be milder.

Most of the avocados that are sold in the UK are Haas avocados, with thick, knobbly dark green skin. However, occasionally you will see Fuerte avocados, which have thin, smooth, emerald-green skin, and I believe these are more tolerant of cold temperatures. So if you want to plant your avocado plant in your garden, look out for a Fuerte avocado and grow the stone from that.

Holly Farrell RHS Plants From Pips is the other one I have.
www.amazon.co.uk/RHS-Plants-Pips-plants-family/dp/1784720445

Here is my current Haas avocado plant, about three years old, growing in a pot outside, and my Fuerte seedling is still inside.

Where do you buy Persimmon with seeds in? I've grown them several times years ago, when they always had large, dark seeds in, and they did quite well. I'd love to try again, but I can never find a persimmon with seeds at Sainsburys!

Think it was Waitrose- it's the first time I remember seeing one with decent seeds in though.

We grow tons of stuff from food seeds, it's one of ds favourite hobbies. Keeping them alive in our climate is another thing though! Pomegranate has probably been the most successful amd live outside fine.

The avocados grew, but the leaves keep going brown and fall off. Citrus always get slugged if they go outside. The proper tropical ones like mango, lychee, star fruit and papaya germinate well, but die off as soon as it gets colder and darker.

Dragon fruit grows easily from seed. If we had a heated conservatory I reckon we could get fruit, but yhe windowsill is not big enough. They don't grow true to seed either, so no idea what we would end up with. The yellow seems to grow bigger and faster than the red varieties. Managed one prickly pear too, so will try those again.