Avocado plants for fun, not fruit

Avocados are abundant now and green plants are not. Hence avocados' popularity as a houseplant; you take what you have a lot of and make it into something you have few of. Avocado seeds are easy to grow into avocado houseplants.

The usual method for sprouting an avocado seed is to poke three toothpicks into its side and suspend it in a glass of water. For quicker sprouting, soak the seed in water for a day, then let it dry enough for you to easily peel off its brown parchment cover. With a knife, slice a thin sliver off both the top and bottom ends of the seed. Then stick in the toothpicks so that the bottom end of the seed -- the wider end -- can dangle in a glass of water.

An advantage of sprouting the seed in water is that the growing roots can entertain you well before the green shoot pokes up through the top of the seed. Eventually, though, the roots need soil for air and nutrients.

Indoor avocado trees provide instruction in the basics of plant physiology. The trees elongate mostly from the ends of their shoots, so a young avocado can eventually take on the appearance of a leafy broomstick. Pinch out the tip -- which decreases production of a plant hormone produced there that inhibits growth of side buds -- and side branches develop.

Every indoor avocado grower toys with the idea of someday plucking a buttery fruit from the plant. Sad to say, this is unlikely. When the plants do flower, though, they do so with enthusiasm.