Is your avocado plant getting out of control, and you’re not quite sure what to do?
Are you worried it might take over your home one day?
Don’t Chirp! With a little bit of care and some pruning, you can keep an avocado plant small and under control!
Reasons to Keep an Avocado Plant Small
Avocado plants are vigorous growers.
That seed you want to grow into a plant could grow several feet per year!
If you’re thinking about growing an avocado plant, this is probably not what you’re expecting.
There are a few reasons keeping an avocado plant small can be helpful.
Less Space
Having a smaller avocado plant will take up less space.
A large plant may not fit in your small apartment or house.
Instead of finding additional space for a plant, grow a small plant that will fit your current space.
Balance
As your avocado plant continues to grow, it will start to create branches that will eventually grow in different directions, and it is possible that one side is receiving the brunt of the branches.
This could cause it to lean and eventually falls over.
This is true when we’re talking of young plants or for established trees.
With Young Plants – You could add a support while it is growing, but when the plant becomes an established tree, and that may not be the case anymore.
With a good wind, the entire avocado tree, may fall over.
Easier to Care For
A smaller plant will use less water, will use less fertilizer, and will be easier to move around your home if you want to get the right amount of sunlight or in case you feel like rearranging your house.
Smaller plants are also easier for the plant sitter to take care of if you go away.
You can bring the plant over to a friend or family member and give them instructions or have them come over to check on it for you.
With larger plants – you don’t have the option and would need someone to come over to check on them for you.
Less Fruit
If you only want a few avocados each year, then there’s no reason to get a tree that will grow so big.
A small tree will produce an adequate amount of fruit for your needs while still allowing you to have a yard or garden.
Cold Winters
Avocado trees cannot withstand cold winters outdoors.
By turning an avocado tree into a dwarf, you could put it outside for the summer, and then bring it indoors during the cold months, allowing you to continue to grow avocados.
Keeping it Small
Regardless of your motivation for keeping your avocado plant small, you can make it happen.
The biggest thing you’ll have to do is prune the tree, but you may also need to adjust how you care for the plant.
Pruning
When it comes to your avocado plant, there are two types of pruning.
You can pinch off any new small shoots, there is no time limit when you can do this, this will stop the new growth of the avocado plant.
However, when it doesn’t seem anything new is growing, the plant will still continue growing, this is the time you will need to prune.
Pruning (cutting of branches) should only be done late fall or early winter months to avoid killing your plant.
What branches do you want to prune? The lateral branches or the ones that grow off the main stem.
Works best: You will want to prune the lateral branches, only the ones that have grown to be 8 inches or longer. Leave the rest.
Less Watering
Don’t overload your avocado plant when watering; only water when the soil is dry.
These mini-droughts limit how much water your plant is receiving- less water for photosynthesis.
Remember, since photosynthesis is what creates the plant’s food, what you are doing is adjusting how much your plant can grow.
Direct sunlight
While it’s true that sunlight is necessary for photosynthesis, when you limit the water you are already limiting the amount of food the avocado plant will make for itself.
It really sounds contradictory, but put your avocado plant in full sunlight.
If the plant is not getting enough sunlight, it starts reaching out in hopes of finding the sunlight it needs.
This creates growth that you do not want and weakens the plant in the process because the energy went into elongating the plant looking for sunlight instead of developing what it had already created.
Less Fertilizing
Fertilizer is essentially food for plants, and it helps with their growth.
If you want to keep your plant small, you do not want to fertilize your avocado plant as often as recommended.
Indoor avocado plants, once they are up potting in larger pots/containers, should be fertilized every 3 months, or 4 times a year.
Be cautious – if you are trying to dwarf your plant, you should only fertilize it once or twice depending on your soil quality.
Keep It Cool
Do you remember how avocado plant don’t enjoy chilly winters?
One way to keep an avocado plant small is to keep the plant in a cool spot.
Cool temperatures cause the avocado plant to go dormant, and not grow, but it can even lose the avocados and heads of lettuce that it grew the previous summer.
By keeping it just a bit cooler, not being cold, it can slow growth down, while not stopping growth entirely. This way you can still even get fruit from the little guy.
Final Thoughts
There is plenty of justification for why you would want to keep an avocado plant small.
Perhaps you like the plant but simply do not have the space for a full size avocado tree.
Or perhaps you live in an area that experiences cold winters and you want to be able to bring the avocado tree inside for the winter.
Either way, there are many options you can use to keep an avocado plant small.
With a little pruning, and a slight change to the way you manage the plant and you will have a nicely small avocado plant growing in no time.