How to Prune an Avocado Tree: The Ultimate Guide

You may of have this question come up once or twice – how do you prune an avocado tree? Many people who plant avocado seeds are unware of how exactly they should care for it. For easy research, they’ve probably looked up blog posts on pinterest telling you that you should prune an avocado tree once it gets tall.

So, the question remains. Should you prune your avocado tree while it’s still young? The answer is yes, you should prune your tree.

Why Should You Prune an Avocado Tree?

You should prune your tree because it’s good for it, simple as that. When any tree is pruned, it puts itself into emergency mode. During emergency mode, the tree focuses its energy on generating new buds. As a result, the trunk of the tree is able to thicken, thus growing more brances and more leaves. When you don’t prune your avocado tree, your tree will be flimsy and skinny with leaves at the top.

When you don’t have many leaves, your tree will have less energy to produce new growth. When you prune a young avoacdo tree, you’ll experience thicker growth and more leaves, which will lead to new growth.

How Do You Prune an Avocado Tree?

To prune your tree, you should wait until your tree is around thirty centimeters tall, then find the node halfway down the stem and cut it right above it. You can easily identify a node, which is anywhere a leaf grows out of. When you cut just above the node, you can ensure that trunks grows out of it.

Once you cut above the node, wait a few weeks. After a few weeks, you’ll begin to see new growth and before you know it, you’ll have a thicker, healthier tree. So what time of year should you prune your tree?

You should prune your avocado tree when there is still warm weather on the way, typically around spring and summer. You could prune your tree in the autumn and winter; however, you likely won’t get new growth until the spring when the warmer weather rolls back around.

Need a visual on how to prune an avocado tree? Here are some videos to give you an idea!