Fruiting avocado tree in London, England

This has been debated for some years now, but it’s real;
A thriving and high yielding Persea americana tree produces hundreds of delicious fruits for several years now.

25-30ft Avocado tree in London,England
London grown avocado taste review
Avocado tree filmed in London on New Years Day, very healthy with some avocados on it…
The avocado tree I refer to as ‘Joe’s tree’ in London still fruiting but lost a large branch
The tree seems to be very resilient to London’s freezing temperatures, and the fruits have excellent properties, such as a great flavor, and a good flesh to seed ratio.
Thankfully it has been propagated since awareness about it was raised. I have yet to obtain any grafts, but I plan to do so on 2023.
We’re being closer having a pure frost hardy avocado, and this magnificent specimen paves the way!

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@Getta_Robo
There are a number of avocado cultivars grown in California under the same climate conditions that have been producing for over 100 years. I have visited several of them - in my childhood! So there is no need to obtain scionwood from the specific tree in London. These cultivars are available from retail suppliers.

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That particular tree is not only in the heart of the London urban heat island, it’s also growing in a walled-in garden with additional microclimate effects. It may have never even experienced “hard freeze” temperatures, or at least not in a very long time.

I say this as someone obsessively dedicated to breeding hardier avocado cultivars, so I don’t mean to dampen your enthusiasm, but I wouldn’t treat that tree as being particularly hardy.

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@Richard how cold does it gets in the said region in California? From other topics I’ve read in the community, most known cultivars have issues with frost, and this one has survived quite few nights of frost so far.
@swincher this is true, but since known cold hardy cultivars seem to have failed when grown outdoors in London, this specific random seedling is a champion. So while indeed the conditions such as having a good microclimate are on its favor, it doesn’t also change the fact being a rather resilient one.

The hardier cultivars can handle frosts ok. Here are some of my trees from yesterday morning, after they had multiple nights around -4°C a couple weeks ago:




Those are a seedling tree, Northrop, Aravaipa, and Pancho, respectively.

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Your seedlings seem to adopt to frost very well. I wasn’t very clear, I was referring to various seedlings and cultivars tried to grown outdoors in London. All I’ve read perished. There are some fruiting trees on the southern part of England but that’s pretty much it.
Some people were trying to grown hardy Mexican cultivars, but didn’t survived after a frost there either.
By the way I’ve read there’s people growing seedlings in central/northern Greece but I’ve yet to acquire any evidence about them as well.

The only one of those that is a seedling is the first one, which is a seedling of Mexicola Grande. The other three are grafted.

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@Getta_Robo
In my opinion you are a victim of sellers trying to peddle scionwood supposedly from that tree.

The tree has been studied by a few investigators at the Kew Institute. You can probably find the paper on Google Scholar.

If you’d like to read further papers regarding Avocado I recommend starting with the works of Gary Bender, formerly of UC ANR.

@Richard I’m actually very interested of preserving it and further wide spreading it, since I couldn’t find any mentions on the community.
So no, I’m not trying to “sell” or “buy” anything, especially from the time being I’m planning having some grafts for no actual cost.
I’d like to read some published papers by Dr Bender, and I have had a quick look on both google and scholar in regards of any research by Kew institute, but I failed to locate anything based on that. Do you have any to share?
The closest result I got is the following article, which also states this tree has survived nights of at least 10c:

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I’ve exchanged a few emails with someone living in Scotland who has grafted scions from that tree, and last winter they had about the same level of cold damage as his Hass seedlings. That is what convinced me it’s purely an artifact of microclimate. The tree is in the warmest part of the city and is in a walled courtyard with high masonry walls on 3 sides, and a large masonry building at the end of the courtyard. I think almost any avocado tree can be grown in that precise location.

I don’t mean to discourage you from collecting scions and repeating the experiment under different conditions, but I just wanted to make sure your expectations weren’t set too high.

Edit: For reference here’s a growing zone map for London, which is mostly zone 9a-9b with one little pocket of 10a:

Avocados are regularly grown in zone 9b in California, and the hardy ones can be found in many 9a areas, especially if planted in warm locations. I’m surprised there aren’t more people growing avocados in courtyards in London, tbh.

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So you are fishing for free wood? If so, your post belongs in the Trading Post category.
https://growingfruit.org/c/trading-post/7

It sounded more like planning to visit the tree, to me. This is the right part of the forum for this thread I think.

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And 8b if you include the Stewarts growing in Yucaipa and Oak Glen CA.

If I were to try that nowadays, I’d pick Stewart on Toro Canyon and Borchard rootstocks.

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Those London trees will be put to the test tonight. -3C currently.

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@swincher that’s very interesting, but as far as a know, all areas in Scotland reach considerable lower temperatures than London does, so I’m not surprised that didn’t made it. I’m also aware of how microclimates do work, especially in urban areas, but the thing is, no other known cultivar has survived when outdoors in London during freezing temperatures, and people seem to do well with scions and rootstocks by the same tree.
This year is going to be an excellent test due the upcoming low temperatures and the fact people won’t be able to warm themselves as used to…
No @Richard I’m not “fishing for free wood” nor this is a trade post. Having grafts from public trees isn’t illegal in the UK as far as I’m aware so I’ll give a try.

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His exact wording was “Though they mostly survived a mild winter, I saw the same level of damage on those grafts as my other Hass seedlings after a few minus 2C nights.” So it wasn’t about whether they survived, just how they compared to other avocados, and they didn’t seem any more hardy to him. He’s in an area near Edinburgh that looks like zone 9a according to the PlantMaps page:

But that is only one data point, I’d love to hear about other first-hand experiences!

Toro Canyon is one that I keep hoping to find available in the retail nursery trade, but so far haven’t seen it, at least not from any nurseries with online/mail order operations. Seems like it’s pretty much exclusively offered in large numbers to commercial growers. Though I’d want to grow it out to test for hardiness and as breeding stock, rather than use it only as a rootstock.