So I noticed something on one of my avocado trees I just received the other day that honestly got me excited for about ten seconds.
Little green clusters all over the branches.
At first I thought, wait… are those baby avocados already?
Nope. Turns out those are flower buds, and a lot of them. The tree was clearly gearing up to bloom. Which is cool… except for one problem.
My trees are still babies, not even transplanted yet into containers.
And after doing a bit of digging and talking to people who grow avocados down here, I realized I should actually remove the flowers right now.
Which felt totally backwards the first time I did it.
The Tree Is Trying to Grow Up Too Fast
Young avocado trees are kinda like teenagers trying to move out at 16.
Technically possible… probably not the best idea.
When a small tree starts flowering, it means it’s trying to make fruit. That sounds awesome, but fruit takes a huge amount of energy to produce. Way more than leaves and branches.
Right now what I actually want is the opposite.
I want the tree focusing on:
- building roots
- thickening the trunk
- growing new branches
So even though it feels strange, removing the flower clusters helps the tree put its energy into getting stronger instead of trying to make avocados too early.
What Those Green Clusters Actually Are
If you’ve never seen avocado flowers before, they look a little weird.
Mine showed up as these tight little green clusters that almost look like tiny broccoli heads. Each cluster holds a bunch of individual flowers that will eventually open.
And apparently avocado trees go a bit crazy with flowers.
A single tree can produce thousands of them… and most fall off anyway.
So removing them now isn’t really hurting anything. The tree was never going to turn most of those into fruit.
My Trees Are Still Really Small
All three of my trees are around 2–3 feet tall right now.
I’ve got:
- a Lamb Hass
- an Oro Negro
- and a Wurtz (the dwarf one)
They’re all going into 17-gallon containers, which should keep their size manageable for a while.
From everything I’ve learned so far, they grow pretty differently.
The Wurtz stays compact and bushy. Lamb Hass is sort of in the middle. Oro Negro sounds like the overachiever that’s going to try to get big fast.
So letting them waste energy flowering right now just doesn’t make sense.
How I Removed the Flowers
Nothing fancy.
I just pinched the clusters off with my fingers.
Seriously. That’s it.
The stems are soft so they pop right off. You can use pruners if you want, but honestly fingers worked fine.
I basically walked around the tree and removed every flower cluster I could see.
It took maybe two minutes.
It Still Felt Wrong the First Time
Not gonna lie… it’s a weird feeling pulling potential fruit off a plant.
You spend all this time hoping your plants will produce something, and then when they finally try to… you remove it.
But the more I read about container avocados, the more it made sense.
A stronger tree now means way more fruit later.
And honestly these trees probably wouldn’t have had the strength to mature fruit anyway.
Something I’m Planning Once They Get Bigger
One trick I keep hearing about is tip pruning once the tree hits around four feet tall.
Basically you snip the growing tip at the top by a couple inches.
That forces the tree to grow side branches instead of shooting straight up like a stick.
More branches = bushier tree = easier to manage in containers.
I’m definitely trying that once these guys grow a bit more.
Anyway… That’s Where My Avocado Experiment Is Right Now
Three small trees. Big containers. Lots of learning.
The flowers are gone for now so the trees can focus on growing up instead of rushing into fruit production.
Hopefully that pays off later.