Third Avocado Plant - Third Pruning on 14 May 2015

My third avocado plant is now sitting in my study room near the window. It has catch the western sunlight every day but not strong light. The leaves have all moved to the direction of the light and you need to periodically rotate the pot to let the leaves expose to equal amount of light.

I have let the avocado plant to grow at least 5 leaves before I prune away the rest. Today, I notice that the new branch has grown 5 leaves. It is time to prune the third avocado again. This will be its third time.

Third avocado with new branch

I have used a cutter to prune away the new leaves.

Using a cutter to prune the branch

Third pruned area

A small branch can be seen at the 2nd pruned area but from the lower leaflet.

A small branch from the 2nd pruned area

Time to prune my third avocado plant

I had pruned the 3rd avocado plant two months ago. The pruned area has grown 5 leaves and now new leaves are emerging. I think I will prune away the top leaves and monitor its progress.

New leaves appearing - time for pruning

Prune it today, 13 Mar 2015

I had also pruned my fourth avocado plant on 14 Mar. I had also done draining to the plants. I kept a bottle of overnight tap water to remove the chlorine and watered the plants until water drained out from the bottom. This will help to dissolve the salts in the soil.

Planting avocado seedling - My 4th and 5th avocado plants

Following my posts in this blog and SG My Garden Is Good blog, you can tell when the avocado seedlings need to be planted into the soil. But I have seen in the internet that people use just water and the plants grow quite well.

The first avocado seedling that I have planted last year did not make it because I have missed the time to plant it. But wait, maybe it is because I have planted it in the soil that makes it worse and it becomes very small. Or maybe I have planted it into a recycle bottle instead of a proper pot. There are many reasons why the first avocado seedling did not survive. So, lessons learnt. Now I plant my seedlings into proper pots and plant them when they have at least 5 leaves and ready for pruning. However, I don't prune them until they are planted into the soil for a couple of weeks or so.

It is Chinese New Year now and noticed that the second day of Chinese New Year is a good day to plant my 4th and 5th avocado plants. I do not want to wait further because the seedlings may miss the time for planting (that was what I thought).

When I planted my 4th and 5th seedlings, I realized that the 2nd and 3rd seedlings have leaves that turned brown at the tip. I was shocked and quickly googled and found the reason for this. Well, again it could be due to few reasons. The browning of the leaf tip may be due to salt accumulation and under watering. I noticed that for a few times, I had used water directly from the tap without letting the water staged overnight. Could it be due to the Chlorine in the water? I'm not sure and now, I let the water staged overnight or at least for a few hours before I water the plant.

Leaf tip turning brown

Yesterday, I poured 1.5litres of water into the pots for 2nd and 3rd seedlings. I let the water ran out of the pots and waited till no drop came out from the bottom of the pots. I was trying to flush out the salts accumulated in the soil and hopefully this would remove them. I will monitor for a few weeks to see whether this will improve the leaves browning situation. I will water the plant every two days and to make sure that excess water drips out from the bottom and not to let any water stays in the bottom tray.

After two weeks, I will update whether this method works. Stay tuned!

Pruning avocado seedling to keep it dwarf

I planted the avocado seedling on 1 January 2015. After 10 days, I think it is time to prune the seedling. The third avocado seedling had seven leaves and I thought I would leave only 3 leaves after pruning. However, I did not want to over-prune it so I just cut away the top 2 leaves.

Third seedling

I used a sharp penknife and cut at an angle to remove the top two leaves. In the internet, some people recommended not to use a pair of scissors because the cut would not be clean. Most recommended a razor blade or sharp knife. The cut area will be able to heal faster and less likely to get an infection.

Sharp penknife to cut the stem at an angle

The cut area is clean and there is no juice or sap coming out from the cut area. I did not clean the area. I hope this is the correct way and will monitor the health of the seedling for the next few weeks. If everything goes well, new buds will appear at the base of the leaves and new branches will grow from there. Some people recommended to remove the small leaves along the straight stem. I'm not sure about this so I just keep them.

The cut area of the seedling

I will update this in SG My Garden Is Good blog. Come and visit the blog to see the progress of the seedling. I will also show the pruning photos of the second avocado seedling.