You may need to repot it in a faster draining soil. Avocados are usually grown in coastal areas with a lot of sandy soil. Lighten the soil a bit and this will give you a chance to look at the roots. If ant are rooted cut them off until you get to healthy roots and sprinkle with cinnamon, let it sit for a day or so. Then water sparingly until the roots heal.

There are several things you can do as a preventative measure for fireblight. For starters, look for any fireblight cancers on your trees. Anywhere there is any oozing, you need to remove the cancers and discard properly, as in the trash in a sealed lastic bag. Second, you can use Serenade on your trees to establish healthy bacteria cultures - it's like Yoghurt establishing healthy bacteria in your digestive system. The bacteria cultures in Serenade are really good for stimulating the plant immune systems as well. Third, there are sprays available that target fireblight in the Spring when the trees are blooming. If it's raining or drizzling during bloom time, you need to spray the blossoms every 3 to 7 days. I forget the name of the new fireblight spray, it's also a type of bacteria that occupies the entry point for fireblight bacteria and as such it keeps the fireblight bacteria from entering. But it needs to be present already before the arrival of fireblight. I live in a mild climate and our Fall apple bloom is underway on the low chill varieties, and we have a massive tropical storm heading our way so I will be spraying in the next couple of days.

JD what probably got you confused is that even a zone 5 tree rose still has to be overwintered in the garage. A zone 7 tree rose tends to get very sick even while overwintered in the garage, because it cannot tolerate being stuck in the garage for as long as our winters last (several months of winter) That's why wheeling tree roses in and out of the garage is very important as soon as you get a warm break out of the weather. On the other hand a zone 5 tree rose can withstand the dark garage a little longer than a zone 7 tree rose can. Again, don't get discouraged. The more you practice the better you'll get at it. Also don't blame yourself either about canker. One thing that people do not realize is that constant rains on one's tree rose, no matter how well you care for it will cause canker. There are certain things which can't be helped. We've been real, real unlucky weather-wise in Kansas City. So even if you keep pruning and keep the leaves clean, canker is inevitable if you keep getting non-stop rains. To me it's impossible to think that next year is gonna be as bad as this year was. It's GOT TO BE BETTER NEXT YEAR! that's what I keep telling myself, lol! JD, here is an image of a properly pruned tree rose. There is still one more essential diagram that I need to find, but can't for the life of me! So frustating! The fantastic diagram shows how to make the cuts along the branches of the tree rose. Maybe someone here knows where the original link is! I tried googling but to no avail. I can't find the diagram except for this, but it's a bit blurry and hard to see. The only thing wrong with the diagram is that you can't plant tree roses in the ground in our zone, JD. That's just a tree rose in a place like California, lol! It is crucial to have air-flow with tree roses or disease will set in. For organics growers, tree roses are the most difficult for us because the bud unions are constantly exposed to rains and freezing temperatures and both weaken the rose with this exposure. Also a tree rose requires constant shaping throughout the growing season. However, you have to be very careful to never ever prune when there is moisture. You can only prune when it's bone dry. That's what's so frustrating about our constant rains. It leaves very little dry time to do our pruning.

The garage it was in the first day or so is heated but it was outside for about 24hrs. Close to freezing the whole time. Would it be helpful to remove the dead leaves at the bottom? Or let it be?