How to Plant an Avocado Tree Grown from a Pit

Hello from HealthyHousePlants.com! Today, we’re going to talk about what to do with an avocado tree that you’ve grown from a pit. Usually, you can keep the tree in water for about a year, but at some point, it’s going to start to struggle, as has happened with this one. I’m going to cut off a couple of the leaves that aren’t doing so well. Because it’s been sitting in the water for a while, it will be fine—just cut the leaves off. That’s looking pretty good.

Now, we’re going to plant it in a pot so that eventually, we’ll have a nice big avocado tree for our indoor garden. Right now, I’m using some wallboard tape; you can also use screen. I’m going to use this by putting it over the drainage hole because you don’t want the soil to keep creeping out as you water. You do, however, want a pot that has drainage holes.

Adding a little worm compost here, mixing it in. Also, we have some Pro-Mix BX. Adding some water in here. Anytime you’re replanting something, you do want moist soil—you don’t want it soggy, but you do want it moist. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, you want the plant to have ready access to moisture when you plant. Secondly, if you plant in very dry soil, when you water the pot, the soil will settle very low and you won’t have enough in the pot. So, this is the best thing to do.

Next, we’re going to add some starter fertilizer, something with a low NPK like a 2-1-3 or 2-2-2. This is Dr. Earth; it’s a good brand. Mixing it in here, mix it in well. Now, we’re going to gently add the first few handfuls to the pot so that you don’t dislodge the screening. Keep adding the soil; you don’t want to fill it all the way up, though, because you’re going to need to fit the plant in there.

Okay, now we’re going to take it out. As you can see, we have some nice white roots and some nice brown roots on there. Look around for any stray pieces, pull anything out, take off any roots that have become mushy. Make a nice little hole and fit it in, try to fan the roots out a little bit as you do so. You want to keep the seed at about the level of the top of the pot.

Put in soil, tamp down gently, fill in. You want to cover the seed up, but you don’t want to completely mound around it; you want to have it nice and even across the top. Keep tamping down, and then you also want to make sure you have about an eighth of an inch rim, so the soil should be about an eighth of an inch down. I like to tamp it down even closer like that; that way, when you water, the water doesn’t overflow the pot but stays in.

Now that we have it all potted up, we’re going to go ahead and just clean it up a little bit. We’re going to give it some water. You want to water slowly but thoroughly, give it a good soaking. You probably won’t need to re-water for a week or even two weeks. Don’t re-water again until about the top inch or so of soil has dried out.

Place the plant in a sunny window, such as a southern or eastern exposure. Thank you for watching! Please leave comments about any other indoor gardening tutorials you’d like to see, and remember to like, comment, subscribe, and share this video.