Is It Possible To Grow Your Own Tree From A Grocery Store Avocado?

Your guacamole was delicious, and now after eating the creamy, buttery fruit, you're staring at the slippery, oblong seed (many people refer to the center of the fruit as a pit, but it's really a seed) and wondering if it's possible to grow your own tree from this grocery store avocado. The short answer is yes, but it isn't going to be the easiest plant you've ever tried to grow. Even once it towers over you at between 8 and 80 feet tall, depending on the species, there's no guarantee that it will reward you with yummy avocados. Nonetheless, if you want to attempt to grow your own tree from a store-bought avocado, it can be done. You just need to follow a few steps, be patient, and watch out for pitfalls ("pit"-falls — see what we did there?).

If you're planning to grow an avocado tree from a seed, be careful when you cut open the fruit. Your best chance at getting a sapling to grow from an avocado seed is to keep that seed healthy, so avoid nicking it with your knife. Your Auntie may have gushed about how she whacked her knife into the pit (or seed, as you now know), gave it a quarter-turn and twisted the slippery thing out. She then plopped it into some dirt, and now it's 7 feet tall. If so, good for her, but that doesn't usually happen, which is why you want to know the more reliable ways of growing an avocado tree from its seed.

That grocery store avocado tasted scrumptious, and the seed looks healthy. Surely you can grow it into a tree, you're thinking. You might have heard that to grow and care for an avocado tree, you should start the process by sticking toothpicks into the seed and letting it hover over a glass of water. Right? Wrong. In 2023, TikTok shared a different method for growing avocado trees, and we were obsessed. The social media influencer who devised that process revised his method slightly since then, but it's still fairly easy and appears to work. Whichever method you use, some avocado growers recommend removing that brown layer before taking any other steps. Those are all good tips, but the reality is that growing an avocado tree from a seed is still problematic.

For the most reliable cultivars, the best propagation method and the one used by professionals is grafting. This is the process of essentially getting a branch of one tree (called a scion) to grow into the stem and rootstock of another tree. If you haven't tried it, start with a beginner's guide to grafting fruit trees (and common mistakes to avoid). It will help you determine when to take avocado tree cuttings that will become your scions, possibly from the tree of a family member, neighbor, or friend whose tree produces fruit you like. Invest in a good book or read "Propagating Avocados: Principles and Techniques of Nursery and Field Grafting,"  for free to learn how to prepare the rootstalk, another essential part of the process.

It's possible to take a store-bought avocado seed, and nurture it so that it grows into a tree. But growing and fruiting are two different processes. Nearly all seed-bearing plants on earth require a pollinator (like bees or butterflies) or pollinating-process, and this is where amateur avocado afficionados often get a little flummoxed. Do some research, and you'll discover that when avocado trees blossom, they have both male and female parts and thus can self-pollinate, but that doesn't mean it's easy.

Avocados are classified by type. The female flowers open in the morning and the males in the afternoon for type A avocado plants, with the reverse happening in the type B trees. That means it can be trickier for the two to "hook up!" Pollinators like bees or even the wind help outdoor trees. If yours is inside, does shaking your indoor avocado tree help it grow fruit? Only slightly; hand-pollinating by touching a male and female flower together is better, as is using small brushes or swabs.

If all you want is a houseplant or outdoor tree that flowers and doesn't provide fruit, great! The avocado is a pretty tree, and you may or may not get fruit. When can you expect to see fruit on your avocado tree? When you start a tree from a seed, it takes years to flower (and thus to fruit). How many years depends on factors like what type of avocado tree you have planted, what the growing conditions have been (sunlight, soil, water, fertilization, etc.), and whether you have grown it outdoors or indoors.