Avocado plants need a location that meets their requirements so that they can grow healthily and produce lots of fruit. Below you can find out what the optimal location looks like.
Table of Contents
General site conditions
Due to the original origin of avocado plants , they like locations that are close to their actual home. Since this is located in the warm, humid tropical rainforests of Mexico and Central America, the ideal place for a Persea americana is characterized by the following characteristics:
- Ambient temperature: warm between 22 degrees Celsius and 25 degrees Celsius
- Light conditions: bright and sunny – full sun only to a limited extent (see under “Outdoor” and “Young plants”)
- Also accepts partial shade (expect slow growth)
- Humidity: on average between 60 and 80 percent
young plants
Unlike older specimens, avocado seedlings can be placed in full sun for the first two years of life. The blazing sunlight acts as an activator of energy during this time, which stimulates growth. From the age of three, the metabolism changes and locations in full sun provoke brown leaves and/or burns. If a young plant is in the blazing sun, care must be taken to ensure that there is sufficient moisture, because this will result in greater evaporation and the need for water will increase accordingly. A permanent stay in the house is recommended for young plants because their shoots are still too sensitive and wind could break them. In addition, they do not tolerate possible temperature fluctuations between day and night or night temperatures that are too cool.
outdoor
As soon as frost-free outside temperatures allow it, adult avocados like a place in the fresh air from the age of three. They can be planted in the garden soil, but it makes no sense because they are not hardy and transplanting them twice a year does not do them any good. It is therefore advisable to put them outdoors in pots or tubs. The following rules apply to outdoor locations:
- Put it outside at the earliest when the ground frost is over (from Eisheiligen in May)
- Bright and sunny or full sun, but slightly shady in hot midsummer or protected from the midday sun
- Protected against wind and drafts
- Due to rapid growth, make sure you have enough space
houseplant
Avocados are mainly cultivated as houseplants because healthy growth can be better achieved by constantly maintaining higher temperatures. An east-facing window seat is ideal. A south-facing window should be able to protect the aguacate plant from the blazing midday sun. A west-facing window could mean too much afternoon heat for the saplings in midsummer. Accordingly, the soil dries out faster and you have to water it more. A window seat facing north is an unsuitable location.
Winter
Avocados do not tolerate temperatures around and especially below freezing very poorly. If you are exposed to these, the end of your life is imminent. Therefore, a timely changeover from the open air to the warm area must be carried out, or sufficient heat must be provided by heaters. The optimal location for avocado plants in winter looks like this:
- Bright and warm (minimum room temperature of 21 degrees Celsius)
- Ideally suited are rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows (e.g. conservatories)
- Winter location greenhouse possible if flooded with light and heated
humidity
An important criterion when choosing the ideal location is the humidity. Especially in winter, this is very low due to the heating air and moving to a warmer, damper place is hardly possible. Therefore, the ideal location either has an air humidifier or sufficient moisture is provided “manually” by regularly rinsing off the avocado plant.
relocation
Whether and how well an avocado can cope with a change of location is something that even many experienced hobby gardeners do not agree on. As a rule, moving is not a problem if the new location meets the same conditions as the previous one. However, if the lighting conditions change, for example, brown leaves are often the result. Experts also advise against changing the location when the avocado plants start to bud, as this could interrupt further growth for weeks. At worst, it leads to a year without yield. Ideally, the avocado is therefore only rarely moved and should only be outdoors if it can remain there for a long time. Frequent moving out and in is to be avoided.
