Yet indeed. Totally on board with that. Dare to reimagine.
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I would start with Port Townsend. It’s zone 9a, south facing, and on the water
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I have two members of the project in that area getting trees this spring! Though one of them is closer to Port Angeles.
I think there are south-facing slopes all around the coast of the Salish Sea that can be very similar microclimates to that grove in Switzerland, and hopefully eventually we’ll be able to test that theory.
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Thank you for sharing! Honestly it’s remarkable how similar that looks to the PNW, with snow-capped mountains and hardy palms side by side. My house is in a valley with no view, though.
Here’s one of my hardiest one year-old seedlings, it lost quite a few leaves in the recent wind, but still holding a few:
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Among the 9 cultivars grafted on the 5 trees planted in the ground in the greenhouse, it’s interesting the range of growth stages right now:
Flower buds expanding:
Joey
Duke (on both trees)
Walter Hole
Veg buds expanding:
Aravaipa (maybe one small flower bud)
Jade
Stewart (grafted last summer)
Teague (planted in the ground this winter)
Still dormant:
Linh (grafted last summer)
Long South Gate (planted in the ground this winter)
I’m most disappointed that Jade didn’t flower this year, it’s a pretty sizeable graft, definitely could handle a few fruit.
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I’ll move this here, but yes! Almost certainly.
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Out of the few varieties trialed outside this winter, Pancho/Poncho seems to be the undeniable champion. It has only minor cosmetic damage to leaves, no bud or stem damage, and it’s just barely starting bud break now.
The only protection it got was an unheated upside down flower pot, and only for a couple of the worst freezes, it was unprotected to the mid-20s (°F) on multiple occasions.
The rootstock had its own branch, which was alive with only a bit of damage after the first couple mid-20s nights, but I cut it off (to root!) so the flower pot could fit over it.
Both Northrop and Aravaipa look to be alive, but with more damage. I’ll take their photos next time maybe. Mayo died very early in the winter, and those were the only grafted varieties outside this winter.
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After looking at the forecast and the long range weather models, I decided it was time to plant the first avocado tree of the season.
The one I chose was No. 37, a seedling of Mexicola Grande, which was germinated at the start of January 2021. It spent most of that season in a 7 gal pot, but was moved into a 15 gal pot in late summer 2021, which it stayed in outside (unprotected) for the December freeze that killed most of my trees that winter.
I moved it into the greenhouse in February 2022, when I noticed it was already sprouting a new shoot. That new shoot became this little tree in just one season (though it is already a bit into its spring flush this year):
Roots looked good, not circling yet or anything:
Planted! Now it just needs some wood chip mulch, whenever I can get my hands on some:
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I cannot believe that still none of them have opened their flowers! Duke is finally getting close, as are a few others. Here’s Duke tonight:
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my duke graft you sent me is leafy and glad. the plant lived in the hoophouse over winter, 40F was as cold as it got.
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Today is the first day with two cultivars blooming at once! Duke has been blooming for a few days now, and today “Rincon Valley” (which is perhaps Mexicola) opened its first two flowers. Here’s one, which is behaving like type B, at least so far:
Duke has been mostly acting like type A, but inconsistently, with some flowers in each stage at most times of day.
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And one week later, last night was the first bloom to open for two more cultivars.
Joey, which has much larger flowers than any of the other cultivars I’ve seen so far, with an extra row of anthers:
And Walter Hole, which I missed when it was actually open initially, but might catch one later today:
Walter Hole has many dozens of flowers ready to open on a relatively small graft, so I’m probably not going to let it hold any fruit even if it does set some, but maybe I could allow one, just to try it.
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The same flower that I caught closing up last night as 
is open this afternoon as 
, but no other flowers opening yet on Walter Hole:
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the scion that took, from the ones you sent me, is leafing out just as much as the rest of the little tree! thank you again I’ll edit later to add a photo.
I got a taller greenhouse for this coming year, and hope to let this tree get about 9 feet tall eventually. I started another from a pit from a giant fruit a friend gave me to eat, I may let it grow a bit then cut some of it to also graft. not sure if I’ll buy another tree to graft it to, or frankentree what I’ve got now.
the original tree I have was fine at 40F/45F all winter in the insulated hoophouse. I used heat mats to keep it warm in there.
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That is about the height I plan to keep mine pruned to in my greenhouse, so hopefully it’ll be doable! I’ve been pretty regularly pruning mine to keep the cultivars balanced on multi-graft trees, so they are back under 5’ after getting up around 6+ ft last season. I’m hoping they’ll end this season around 7’, after an early summer pruning to collect scions and rebalance the varieties on each tree.
It’s interesting how much variation in flush timing there can be among the cultivars on a single tree. This Linh graft (less than a year old) is just now starting its first flush:
The other three cultivars on that same tree are much further along:
In other news, here are the trees about to be distributed to project members down around Portland, all lined up and ready for their road trip:
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Just noticed the first Aravaipa flower has opened today:
Duke is almost finished flowering, Rincón Valley is about 75% done, Joey is a little under 50% done, and Walter Hole is just getting started. Ganter is the only other one left to start flowering this year.
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First, a flowering update… it’s as expected, but still a little sad that so far no clear fruit set on any varieties. Next year!
Looks like zero fruit set on Duke and Joey, both of which have finished flowering. Aravaipa is still holding one last closed-up flower, but that probably will fall soon. Walter Hole is just past peak so could still set a surprise fruit or two. Rincón Valley is in a small pot and not big enough to hold fruit, but has been flowering continuously for a long time now with no fruit setting.
Next up, some photos of the outdoor trees waking up. I haven’t updated the “winter survivors” list yet on the website, but I’ll try to get to that this week and post that link again then.
The most impressive grafted variety is Poncho (aka Pancho), which suffered basically zero damage despite only minimal protection (unheated upside-down flower pot) for the few worst freezes, and no protection for most of the winter. It’s pushing what looks to be a very strong flush:
The most impressive seedlings are #51 (unprotected other than growing next to the house) and #149 (only protected with an unheated upside-down flower pot for the worst couple freezes).
Here’s #51, which is a seedling of Mexicola Grande:
And #149, seedling of Duke:
I’ll post some of the others in a week or two when it’s more clear which ones aren’t going to wake up this year.
In other avocado-related news (not really relevant to this project), I got a box of avocados from Brad Spaugh in southern CA today, looking forward to trying a few of these varieties for the first time when they ripen up:
I may plant their seeds on Death Row, but I assume they aren’t gonna make it if I do.
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Some of the new seedlings are getting big enough now that their roots are emerging from the bottom of these new starter pots I’ve been using this year. This is #282, a seedling of Del Rio from a big batch of seeds someone donated to the project from his trees in Gainesville, FL:
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