Avocado plant help

11 years ago

hi, i have an 8 month old avocado plant that i started from a pit which is now about 4 feet tall and has huge leaves and 7 branches. it has been doing very well until a couple weeks ago when it started to lean slightly, which gradually got worse and worse until it was leaning at almost 45 degrees, it hasnt gotten any taller since starting to lean. yesterday i stuck a stake in the pot to hold the tree up. it looks healthy otherwise, so i cant tell why its just started leaning all the sudden. the branches and leaves look a little limp as well. the only thing i can think of is that either the pot is too small or that its getting too much light (i moved it to a south facing window a couple months ago). the pot is one of those self watering types, about 10 inches wide, and i currently need to refill the entire reserve tank twice a week, there are also some roots breaking into the water chamber.

Featured Answer

Roberto

11 years ago

If the roots seem thin and not so big, it's okay to trim them. Just the thicker more major roots are those you shouldn't cut. If you are going to cut the thinner roots, just try to cut the least amount you can, or if possible, try untangling yourself to avoid cutting so much roots since the plant depend on them for water.

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Comments (7)

Connor55
Original Author
11 years ago
heres a picture.
Roberto
11 years ago
I think your pot is too small, I have some avocado plants too and they have a pretty good sized root system. A big avocado tree like yours probably has a big root system, so changing it to a bigger pot would be a good idea to let it's roots grow bigger, which should help out the plant. Just be very careful when transplanting, avocado trees kinda have a sensitive root system.
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Connor55
Original Author
11 years ago
thanks for the reply. i had a friend give the same suggestion, so its good to hear someone else say the same thing.

i will try to transplant it asap, however right now some of the roots are tangled up in theself watering mechanism on the bottom of the pots, and i cant see any way to get all the roots out intact. i might have to trim off a big chunk of the roots to be able to get it out.... maybe i could cut the pot around those roots to protect the roots. is it going to kill the plant if i cut off some roots? none of these roots are in the soil... theyre creeping into the water reservoir under the main pot.
Roberto
11 years ago
If untangling them seems too much of a challenge, just go ahead and try to cut the least amount as you can and then transplant the tree into a larger pot so that the roots that were cut can be replaced by other roots that may be growing around there
Connor55 thanked Roberto
Connor55
Original Author
11 years ago
i just finished the transplant. i hope i did it right. it didnt all come out as one clean piece , i had to dig around the center because the bottom roots were caught as i mentioned earlier. i did end up ripping off a bunch of hair thin roots as i was carefully trying to dig away the soil from the old pot. most of the big roots are still intact but i couldnt recover anything that was in the lower reservoir:/. anyway its standing in the new pot now which is much larger. i just added some water to the new soil to stiffen it up a little. the plant is still sagging so im using two pegs to hold it up for now. ill keep it out of bright light for the next few days and hopefully itll survive.
Connor55
Original Author
11 years ago
well its been a couple hours in the new pot and the leaves are noticeably drooping... hope this is just temporary