I love plants, they bring such a calming and homely feel to a house, plus they improve the air condition of your home. I would and will, have a house full of plants one day, some plants however, do not like me and would rather die than live in our house ha ha!

The avocado plant is one of my success stories, after seeing a video on how to grow one from an avocado stone, my first attempt failed. I started too late in the year, you need at least 3-4 months to get it started, and it got too cold for the plant, so February is the perfect time.

What you will Need

A large avocado

Plastic pint glass

Water

3 cocktail sticks

How to Make

First of all, the primary thing to do is to enjoy the avocado itself, not too difficult so far is it, I would recommend on toast with lime juice, salt, pepper and chilli flakes, yum.

Save the stone, wash and dry, then start peeling the dark brown protective cover from the stone until it’s bare.

Take 3 cocktail sticks and with the root end facing down (you can see the root section in the picture above) slowly and carefully push the sticks into the top of the stone, equal distances apart. These will hold the avocado in place while it sits in the water.

Fill your plastic glass full of water, I used two glasses together just for extra strength, pop your avocado stone into the water and place somewhere sunny like a windowsill. Now you just have to wait and wait and wait.

After about 2 months you will notice a root starting to grow out the bottom and after about 3 months the tree will start to sprout out of the top of the stone. The water will be pretty gross at this point, but don’t change the water as the plant will feed off this, just keep the water level topped up.

If you don’t see a root after a few months your stone might not be good enough quality to grow, not all of them will. Sometimes it’s worth starting a few at the same time just to be sure.

Once the root touches the bottom of the plastic glass it is time to pot in compost, I gave mine plenty of room in a 15cm pot, the tree will continue to grow and sprout new leaves.

I re-potted the tree again after about 10 months as the leaves were starting to droop and it had stopped growing. As soon as i gave it more room the new growth started to come through.

I can’t say what will happen next as I have never got this far, currently we are on about 12 months. I did hear that nothing would happen for about 2 years. I will update as we go, fingers crossed we might see some fruit in the future.

I hope you try and grow your own avocado plant, whatever your age it is a fun activity to try. If you start one let me know, tag @i_heart_maggie  for Instagram or @IHeart_Maggie on twitter.

Love

Claire X