TheGardenLady received this question from Yvonne.
I planted a hass avocado tree in my garden about three years ago and it has been doing great until a week ago. I live in the NE side of Houston TX and have had so much rain in the last 30 days that the leaves are wilting and turning brown. The tree is about 11 ft tall. What should I do?
Flooding or too much rain is not good for most plants. It deprives the roots of oxygen. Avocado trees are particularly stressed from getting water-logged. (see here)
With all the rains the news has been reporting that Texas is having, there will be lots of plant problems – not only with your avocado tree. It is sad to say, but you might lose this avocado tree because of the excessive rains.
You can leave it in the ground and hope that it does not die.
Or, to try to save it as you asked, if the tree is not too big for you to handle you can dig it up and re-pot it with new soil. Get rid of as much of the mud as you can, put the tree in a pot large enough to put soil underneath and around the root (it should not be planted deeper in the pot than it was in the ground), prune back the tree from the top of the plant so that the tree is short (this will allow the plant to concentrate its energy to growing the root, not the entire plant) and then bring the newly re-potted plant into the house. Because you gave it the new dry soil, water it a normal amount – do not over water.
Though the video above shows how the transfer is done from pot to pot, you will be putting it in from the ground, but the instructions are the same (see here). Get the soil recommended in this video and give the tree a good start with azomite. What is azomite? (see here)