trees | SYNTK

Pruning your avocado tree?

January 31, 2016

Hi folks! Wow, it’s been a long time since I posted here. I hope I remember how to use WordPress (I’m kind of a Tumblr person now). Anyway, I’ve received so many comments and questions about how to care for avocado trees, that I wanted to post the results of how extreme trimming of my tree Xavier went last year.

This is how Xavier looked on January 13, 2015, right before I pruned him.

This is how extreme the pruning was.

Xavier always looks kind of bad in the winter time. I live in a cold climate, and my home gets very chilly. There is always a lot of leaf drop when it gets cold, but last winter, I felt like Xavier was getting really unhealthy and needed to “start over.”

I am not an expert on plants or anything, but I have had great luck with Xavier and many of the plants I have, so I decided to give it a try. I was careful to prune with my clean Felco Pruning Shears to make good cuts. (I clean the shears with rubbing alcohol after every trim – I can’t tell you whether that’s a good thing for the shears or not – only Felco knows for sure, but that’s what I do.) I didn’t water him very much at all during this time before the leaves grew back, because I felt he was dormant.

It took many weeks for leaves to grow back, but they grew back abundantly, just as when Xavier was healthiest!

I am proud to report that Xavier looks great. I just took this photo today (January 31, 2016). You can see Xavier is a lot healthier this winter than he was last winter. Sure, there are some brown leaves, and there’s been a bit of seasonal leaf-drop, but still! Just look at my guy here! I didn’t add any fertilizer or compost this year, either. Just water!