It feels like a rain forest under them.
In 1908, Henry Huntington, the railroad magnate, had avocado trees grown from seed and planted by the hundreds on his property near Pasadena, in what became known as the first commercial avocado orchard in California.
Some survived the “Great Freeze” of 1913. A handful have survived human and pest threats to remain standing today.
I was born and raised 15 miles away along the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and I’d been to The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Garden many times. It is what Henry Huntington’s acreage became after its days as an orchard and ranch. But only in 2015 did I first visit with interest in the old avocado trees.
Any visitor could miss them. Most of the trees are on the edge of the bus parking area, almost hidden, and none are labelled.
But if you know what you’re looking for, and know what you’re looking at, then you walk inside and feel a sense of awe.
The trunks are burled and wounded and wind to the sky.
Down low some are almost black and near six feet in diameter.
Their weeping, wandering branches often come down to touch the leaf litter on the floor of the orchard only to rise up again.
Scratching around under the trees, you have to go deep before reaching dirt. Many years of leaf mulch has been allowed to build up, and healthy roots finger throughout it.
And the old beauties still flower with full force.
This week I made my most recent visit and spoke with Raquel Folgado, a botanist at The Huntington who works on cryopreservation of avocados. Folgado told me that most of the surviving, oldest avocado trees there are seedlings. In other words, they are not grafted varieties with names you would know. And often, the few that were grafted have rootstock suckers that have been allowed to grow.
Since these old seedling trees and rootstocks have proven themselves so durable in California conditions, one local nursery is now propagating some of them in order to explore their potential as rootstocks to be grafted with avocado varieties that are desirable today — Hass, GEM, etc.
It is conceivable then, that someday you could have an avocado tree in your yard whose roots come from one of these majestic old trees at The Huntington.
Whether or not that happens, be sure to notice them on your next visit. They are among the oldest living avocado trees in California. Who knows how much longer they will survive.
You might also like to read:
The Quetzal and the Wild Avocado
How the Fuerte avocado really got its name
Growing avocados in Southern California
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Please help i want to now how old is my avo tree on my farm in south africa
Hi Jan,
Can you measure the circumference of the trunk? I’ll do my best to estimate its age, but I’m not aware of a way to do so with precision.
You might also research the history of your farm for helpful information. Even try searching at avocadosource.com
Do you know if it’s a grafted variety or a seedling?
Hello,
I grew up in Whittier where many of the homes had old trees on the property. We always had a hooked picker hanging from a branch, ready for when we wanted avocados. Everyone had them on their trees. I have looked everywhere for this kind of picker. It did not have a basket, but was easy to get in between the branches to get the avocados. I do not want the pickers with the orange basket. Do you have any idea where this ‘vintage’ picker can be purchased
Hi Lydia,
I love the old trees throughout Whittier. A college friend grew up there with a giant Fuerte shading her house.
I don’t actually know the hooked picker you’re referring to, unfortunately. Did it yank the fruit off, or did it have an edge or scissors to sever the stem?
Maybe one of the newer avocado pickers can be used to get the style of tool you want. (The baskets are bulky and irritate me too.) Have a look at this one that doesn’t use a rope: https://www.loboproductsinc.com/product/fruit-picker-head-bag-mex-avocado-picker/
And have a look at this one that uses a rope: https://www.loboproductsinc.com/product/fruit-picker-head/
They come with bags to catch the avocados, but you could always cut those off if you wanted.
My bacon avocado tree is 40 feet tall and I can’t harvest most of the fruit without climbing. Can I top it and bring it down 15 feet or so? I thought I did 2 years ago but it’s still to tall. Problem I have is all the animals that rely on it for food, Skunks, Possum, Cats Racoons.. etc. and my dog has been skunked 4 times.
I’m guessing 70 years old like the house,
Hi Steve,
Yes, you can bring such a tree down to 15 feet, or even lower. This past March I brought a tall seedling avocado tree in my mom’s yard down to about 10 feet from about 30 feet. About five years prior, I’d brought the tree down to about 15 feet from 30 feet.
See some more about pruning avocados in these posts:
https://gregalder.com/yardposts/pruning-avocado-trees/
https://gregalder.com/yardposts/pruning-avocado-trees-to-keep-them-small/
I’m curious what variety of trees these are. I’d love to check them out sometime.
Hi Matt,
I am too. Those trees I photographed above don’t have labels and the fruit was all so high that I couldn’t identify any. I’m hoping to visit again soon and I’ll try to find someone who knows.
Hi Greg,
You could try using a binoculars. That is what I do.
Thanks for the tip Greg. Just got back from Huntington and made a point of checking them out near the bus parking. Pretty unbelievable trees
Why didn’t I think of that? Thanks for the idea, Soon.
Greg,
Thanks for this awesome article. I live on El Mirador Drive in Pasadena, home of the famous El Mirador grove planted around 1920. My 3 trees are about 15 – 30 feet tall, but my neighbor has a 40 foot tree which still produces hundreds of massive fuertes every year. Our trees haven’t been properly maintained and I brought them back during Covid after much water, fertilizing, and using a home made air spader to loosen the compacted soil (it worked like a charm). Your articles are so valuable. Do you have have any recommended reading other than Avocado Production by Gary Bender?
Thanks,
Peter
Wow, Peter. You live on such a historic piece of avocado land. Good to hear that you value your trees and that the trees are improving.
Other recommended avocado reading includes:
Frank Koch’s “Avocado Growers Handbook”: http://www.avocadosource.com/books/Koch.1983.book.pdf
California Avocado Society Yearbooks: https://www.avocadosource.com/CAS_Yearbooks/CAS_Yearbooks.htm
Ben Faber’s avocado blog posts at Topics in Subtropics: https://ucanr.edu/blogs/Topics/
Hello, Greg–
Thank you for your research.
Do you know if there was an avocado grove planted in the early 1900’s south of Huntington Drive, between Del Mar Av. and San Gabriel Bl.?
There are a couple trees in that neighborhood of “venerable age.” They certainly pre-date the building of the houses there in the 1940s. We think they are Fuerte.
What might your educated guess be about the history of those trees?
Hi Claire,
That’s possible. There were many avocado groves in the area back then, and I read that Huntington’s property was originally three times as large as it is today.
I’ve been planning a Pasadena and Altadena trip for a while. Hope to do it next month, and I can try to visit those trees. Report back to you.
Hi Greg, My trees we planted approximately 1930. The are very tall ,over 30 ft. The trunks are beautiful! I would like to top them to maybe 20 ft. Will this push growth to the lower limbs that have become very sparse?
Thank you for your recommendation. My home is in a very old Calavo grove in LEUCADIA CA.(Encinitas Ca)
Hi Teresa,
Yes this is possible. The best time to do this height reduction is late winter, February or March.
Do you know which varieties you have? I have visited other remnants of old groves in Leucadia that have multiple varieties, some of which I haven’t been able to identify. These trees are very interesting to me.
Thank you Greg
We have fuerte and hass. Do you think topping will cause more growth on the lower branches?
Yes. Avocados sprout new branches wherever enough sunlight is present. If you want to be sure that new branches sprout at a particular height you should cut back to that height because always new shoots will emerge right below a cut. For example, if you want new branches at 8 feet off the ground, then cut back to 8 feet (or a little above 8 feet).
I’m usually at Cal Tech every other week. I usually drive right past the Huntington. I will definitely have to make a stop and look at these old trees.
Thank you for sharing.
Fantastic photos! There’s a younger old-growth grove on a hillside on the UC Riverside campus and some trees have a similar habit of sending branches into the soil to make new trees. Most are towering giants and keep the ground extremely shaded, like a jungle with no undergrowth.
Thank you for alerting us to this grove at the Huntington which I had no idea existed and have been a member there for many years. Avocado trees are a mystery to me, we have one on our property which is probably at least 60 years old but hasn’t produced any fruit in the last thirty years.
Hola Greg. Felicitaciones por la página web. Estoy haciendo un ranking de árboles de aguacate. En mi zona tengo uno plantado en 1906 con 60 pies de altura. Se llama “el aguacaton de Llacin” en Asturias, España. He oido decir que es uno de los más grandes del mundo ¿que te parece? Saludos