Compared to other tropical plants, the avocado is relatively easy to handle. Proper care rewards it with lush growth and beautiful, lush green leaves.
How do you properly care for an avocado plant?
Proper care for an avocado plant includes moderate watering to avoid waterlogging, slowly acclimating young plants to fertilizer from 4-6 months old, and maintaining high humidity by spraying with lukewarm water. Brown leaves can indicate lack of water or other problems.
Water moderately: Avocado doesn’t like moisture
The avocado doesn't need too much water, the plant doesn't tolerate waterlogging particularly well and quickly develops root rot if the moisture is persistent. Instead, you should keep your avocado slightly moist and occasionally allow it to dry out. Once the leaves droop, water your ornament again. In summer, the avocado needs daily watering, especially in sunny and/or hot weather, but in winter you should water much less often. Stale, room temperature water is best.
Fertilize avocado: Only from the age of four to six months
Young avocados still get their nutritional needs from the avocado pit. You only need to slowly get the plant used to fertilizers when it is four to six months old. Use a container plant or citrus fertilizer and start with just a third of the specified concentrate. Only increase the amount of fertilizer slowly. Fertilization approximately every two weeks (less often in winter) is sufficient.
Brown leaves usually indicate a lack of water
If your avocado has brown leaves, this can have various causes:
- Lack of water (leaves are brown and crumbly, especially at the tips and edges)
- too much water (check roots for rot!)
- too much / too little fertilizer
- the wrong fertilizer
- the wrong soil (some avocados do not tolerate conventional potting soil)
- Pot too small (if in doubt, repot the avocado)
In most cases, however, brown leaves are due to a lack of water and specifically to low humidity. Pest infestation is very rare if cared for properly, as avocados are very robust plants.
Tips & Tricks
As a tropical plant, the avocado is used to high humidity. Therefore, especially in winter, the leaves can quickly turn brown due to the dry heating air. To counteract this, spray your avocado with lukewarm water every two to three days.
