Avocado Trees

Avocado plant grown from seed.

Zone Exeter, United Kingdom | Anonymous added on October 2, 2018 | Answered

Hello there! While I was at university, I started growing an avocado plant from the pit of a supermarket avocado I had eaten. It was a fun experiment and it's still alive almost two years later and doing very well! It's probably now around a 2.5 feet in height, lots of leaves, and has 3 new branches (plus a tiny set of leaves at the very base of the plant). Overall it looks very healthy from my naive gardening knowledge! As just a bit of extra information - I live in Exeter, United Kingdom. I think it's hardiness zone 9a (ish). I'm guessing its a Hass avocado as that appears to be pretty much the only avocado type that's sold in the supermarket. It's currently grown in a 25-30cm pot. It's outside during the summer and I bring it inside for winter. Basically, I keep reading online that a avocado grown from a supermarket avocado pit will never flower / produce fruit? I don't really mind - its a fun experiment anyway and its quite a pretty plant. But I was wondering what is the reason for this, and whether there was any way of helping it produce fruit? I read three reasons as to why, and I was wondering which was correct? Or a different reason altogether! 1) Avocados just have to be grafted. And no amount of good climate/gardening will make a shop bought avocado bear fruit as its just genetically impossible. 2) Avocados have to be at least 10 years old to bear fruit and a shop bought pit will just never get to that age without dying. If so, then why is that the case? 3) The UK just isn't a good climate for avocados, and so will never bear fruit. If there is a chance it would bear fruit - is there anything I could do to help? Sorry for the long question! Thanks very much!

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Answered on October 3, 2018
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