Late yesterday, I pulled the one remaining dead Avocado from my Spring plantings. Five of nine died in all, however at least three of the five were already dead going in (hailstorm survivors, and rotting root systems) from the outset. I haven't yet replaced the others, but this replacement is a Stewart. It fills out the five tree slots I still have growing on the side of my yard. None are thriving now, but all are alive. It will be interesting to see how well I can protect them going into the colder seasons.
Something I always puzzle over is the water habits at the nursery. The general conclusion for why my trees did so poorly early on was that the soil medium was too absorbent and that the trees had wet feet. So the old leaves would turn brown and drop. A lot of new leaves seemed to fizzle up and dry before they even got started. I'm still not 100% convinced it was for over-watering with my once a month one or two gallons watering regime early on. But to the original point, whenever I stop by and check these trees at the nursery, they are soaking wet in their 5G pots. I think they water twice a day, morning and evening. They are grown in a kind of redwood chip heavy soil, that seems to get really wet. Low perlite/vermiculite content. I'm wondering how they can water the trees this way and not have problems, whereas I am barely watering them at my house and the assumption is over-watering. It could be the limited light these trees get on the side of the house is in part to blame, however of the five trees that fizzled, four were in full or nearly full sun. Only one of the five on the side of the house died.
Here are some pics of the new Stewart. It's the best of about six available at the Roseville, CA Green Acres Nursery. They're all Four Winds Growers stock. Kind of expensive at ~$38 a tree.