Rooting powder
At a party today someone told me about rooting powder. It's made from willow bark, or something like that. You mix it with water and apply it to... your cuttings. To encourage them to strike. Sounds good to me. I wonder whether I can get Stephen to take some cuttings from that avocado tree and strike them. I'm sure he'd like to fast-track his own orchard, and while he's at it he can organise some for me.
They don't like wet feet and they need a lot of feeding... at least that's conventional wisdom. But this specimen is bloody huge and loaded with fruit every year, and nobody feeds or takes any particular trouble to look after it. Admittedly it's planted on a hillside giving exactly the recommended drainage, so probably that's important. But it's so damn big the roots must be down at least 6m, and the hill isn't that big, so it's hard to know whether it's really a factor.