Interview with John Schoustra

Interview with John Schoustra

John Schoustra’s experience growing plants is broad. Just his current ventures look like this: he operates Greenwood Daylily Gardens alongside his wife, growing and breeding daylillies, irises, and more; he is the Orchard Manager of Apricot Lane Farms,...
Feral avocado tree in San Juan Capistrano

Feral avocado tree in San Juan Capistrano

Avocado trees are not supposed to be able to grow on their own in Southern California. Here our rainfall is far less, and our rainfall pattern is completely opposite, compared to where avocados grow wild. In most of Southern California, we average 10-16 inches of rain...
Sharwil avocado tree: video profile

Sharwil avocado tree: video profile

Where does the Sharwil avocado variety come from? How does it grow? Does it fruit well? Is it an A or B flower? Would it be a good one for your yard? (Coming soon: a full written profile of the Sharwil variety.) Your support enables me to keep ads off this website and...
Carmen avocado tree: video profile

Carmen avocado tree: video profile

I put together this video profile of the Carmen variety of avocado tree to complement my profile post (found here). While the post is more comprehensive than this video, some aspects of the Carmen variety are nice to see in action. Also, in the video I have made sure...
Results of girdling non-Hass avocado trees

Results of girdling non-Hass avocado trees

In the fall of 2023, I girdled four avocado trees beyond the Hass that I usually girdle. The response from my Hass tree to girdling has been consistent and predictable, but the responses from these other varieties was variable. The Hellen and Lamb trees flowered...
Cadway avocado fruit: a profile

Cadway avocado fruit: a profile

Rick Cadway hit the jackpot. In 2005, he planted a seed from a typical Hass avocado that he bought at Costco and it grew into a tree that makes world-class fruit. This is not what usually happens. Usually, when you grow an avocado tree from a seed you get a tree that...
Who pollinates avocado flowers?

Who pollinates avocado flowers?

That’s a tarantula hawk feeding on a flower of my Edranol avocado tree. I watched it work that tree for five minutes, then fly to a Fuerte twenty feet away, and then come back to visit the Edranol flowers again. Ten minutes later, I found the tarantula hawk crawling...
All about avocado pollination

All about avocado pollination

My avocado trees are in bloom. I can’t help but meander the yard at every chance to see which trees have male or female flowers, to identify insects that are visiting the flowers, to check for fruitlets forming, and so on. It’s a show with new episodes arriving daily....

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