My latest orphan

Proablly one of the greatest draw backs from working in a garden centre is you spent far too much time looking at plants and wondering where they might get to and what they could be in a few years.


Hence a new addition to my collection, an olive tree (Olea Europea),
...still not 100% sure why I bought this as I'm not a great fan of olives and hate olive oil but something in the trunk kind'a called my name, that and the fact I got it very cheap).

It's only small about 4 to 6 years old max (to give you an idea on size its a 5 litre pot in the photo), is in need of a major prune but, all in all looks quite sweet in my eyes.
I'm a bit stumped about how to shape an olive as they only seem to suit broom style when this kinda age

any ideas folks?

Haven't a clue re styling, but it certainly looks to have potential.

Dave

Yeah its deciving a bit , around the trunk theres a lot of crossing branches, took these out and its opened up the veiw so to speak nibbled a few straglers and cleaned it up somewhat untill i've got to a kind'a semi shape, still feel this little tree could be something nice tho

well heres the point I'm up to atm, cleaned it up somewhat (broom style), pot needed etc yet but I think it has some potental.




Note the white spots on the leaves is just hard water, we have a poor mains water supply at work.

Begining to think working on the left hand side of this might give a better result?

Rhubarb,

for less than 100 TT dollars, at that size, that's a good price.

Needs thinning out more, and I see more of an unusual, but beautiful informal. Don't know what your climate would do to an olive at this time of the year, so I can't say when to thin out more.
Keep it healthy and do post more images as you train.
Thanks for posting.
Khaimraj

* I have the smaller leaf Olea a.

Kinda thinking about this shape? could add a few jins etc where the braches are lost....

but will take a while to work out whats best first




Any input gratfully reciced

Nice to see people posting because I kind'a got it on a whim then had to justify to the wife "it was cheap and nobody loved it" (another garden center trait there) ahem.

the cost was about £4 something after staff discount, we had two maybe three trees with some potental (to my eyes at least) out of about 40 that came in, so it's kinda nice someone thinks I made a good choice

Olives can be very rewarding, and the leaves will reduce nicely. The one thing you shouldn't do is work on it when the weather is cool or cooling for winter. You should really only work when it's hot, and they are growing strongly, and then you can do almost anything without fear to them. You can shave the roots down to a very thin ball and get away with it, as long as it's within the growth cycle. Looks like you've got a lot of possibilities, and time enough to figure it out. If you cut any large parts off, just stick em in sand or fine substrate, and they'll root right up too...
Good find.

cheers Judy,
It's late autum here so this one might have to wait until spring time (or even mid sumer knowing the english weather).

Either way I'm in no hurry, havn't ventuired to looked at the root sytem of this tree but knowing some nursery stock it could be pretty lame

Just a thought from me; Dunno if it is a completely silly suggestion though. But every idea is one to work with?

JudyB wrote:Olives can be very rewarding, and the leaves will reduce nicely. The one thing you shouldn't do is work on it when the weather is cool or cooling for winter. You should really only work when it's hot, and they are growing strongly, and then you can do almost anything without fear to them. You can shave the roots down to a very thin ball and get away with it, as long as it's within the growth cycle. Looks like you've got a lot of possibilities, and time enough to figure it out. If you cut any large parts off, just stick em in sand or fine substrate, and they'll root right up too...

Judy: I realize that I am slightly taking over the thread with this question, but at it is relevant to the development of this tree, I though it would be usefull here; I have an olive too. I want to split it into two trees: Nebary roughly 4 inches. Trunk at 3 inches height only 1 inch. I would like to cut this off, and create a tree from the upper part too. Would you air-layer, or treat it as a cutting? Also, below the cut line there is no foliage. Even repeated trimming of 50% of foliage in summer did not result in sprouting at the base.. Any thought on how to root the upper part & stimulate backbudding?

I was given an olive very similar to Rubarb's as a gift. To be honest I've adopted a hands off and see what it does approach as it is never going to be a priority tree for me. There's a good reason why olives don't grow in nature up here after all .

However, it's survived a Scottish winter and it put on a bit of growth over the summer. It's inside now as we've had a couple of frosty nights, and it'll stay in my south-facing room until probably late-March or mid-April. I'll let it develop into an informal upright of some sort.



Height approx. 14inches.
btw the roots on mine were perfectly fine to start with and are continuing to develop in the same vein.

Leatherback, hopefully this isn't going to far off the topic of rubarbs questions... I have an olive that I've been working with for a few years, and have come to the decision of making it into 2 trees. I'm planning on taking the top part off above the lower branch ring of 3 branches. I am more interested in the advancement of the lower part, than getting a second tree. But if done at the right time, I believe I should get both, and just treat it as a cutting.

Please take a look at this website for amazement factor, and an idea of just how tough they can be.
http://www.dugzbonsai.com/olivehead.htm

Also here is a shot of my olive... Can't wait to develop this from the lower branches, as the lower bark is really good.

leatherback wrote:Judy: I realize that I am slightly taking over the thread with this question, but at it is relevant to the development of this tree, I though it would be usefull here; I have an olive too. I want to split it into two trees: Nebary roughly 4 inches. Trunk at 3 inches height only 1 inch. I would like to cut this off, and create a tree from the upper part too. Would you air-layer, or treat it as a cutting? Also, below the cut line there is no foliage. Even repeated trimming of 50% of foliage in summer did not result in sprouting at the base.. Any thought on how to root the upper part & stimulate backbudding?

Hi leatherback

Have you ever tried to irritate the part/s where you want have backbuddings?
This method worked on one of my wild olives.

I see an awesome shohin olive here. I'd chop in the spring as per my crummy vert and work with the many new buds that are sure to pop on an olive.
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wow thats a cracker JudyB, I don't think I'd change a thing with your tree, the bark texture is amazing! I'd wait and see how it goes, also thank you ! that weblink is fantastic! I knew they where hardy little bugga's but thats insane.

PaulH : You know I wouldn't even have thought of this myself, infact you may have thrown a spanner in the works as I had a pretty good idea what to prune down too ...you got me thinking now, normally I don't like to prune anything back quite that far unless it's at work but...Judys link and your sugestion etc has me thinking hard now.
I'm guessing if I went for something like this option it would have to wait until spring or early summer when the trees got a grow on?

Had a cracking day off work today

Went to town and did the local charity shops (something I do quite often to get cheap gardening books).

I got another two bonsai books (one a nice first edtion) and also found a makeshift pot for my olive all for £4.50, got home and did a bit of re-potting and here are the results:


Still not 100% sure where this tree is going style wise but for now I'm pretty happy with it, ....what do you guys think?

I recently visited a friend who got a similar olive from a garden centre a few years back. He has just trimmed it back and trimmed it back over the intervening years to let the trunk thicken up. His plan is to keep thickening it for a couple of years more and turn it into a fun shohin (meaning by this simply that it'll never win awards bit will be fun to produce). Over time he'll lose the protruding root. Here it is as it looks right now:






There might be some styling ideas in there for you.


And that pot you've just used for yours is temporary, right? Please say yes to that.

fiona wrote:

And that pot you've just used for yours is temporary, right? Please say yes to that.

lol yeah thats a temporary pot
To be honest I was just sick of seeing it in a plastic nursery pot and thought "that'll do"

Your friends olive is very nice, incidently mine has a root that needs removing also (just visable on the photo).

I South Arica the Olives are becoming very popular...especialy the Wild Olive (Olea Europaea subs. Africana)...Round the corner form my house is a small nursery the owner of which is generaly regarded as the king of olives...I will get a few pics round the weekend and post them...

That would be great as I love seeing pics of olive trees. The difficulty Rubarb and I both have is that we don't have the benefit of Cape Town temperatures. However, I was reassured to hear that my friend (who lives in Perthshire, Scotland which is maybe a fraction colder than where I live) keeps his tree outside in a glasshouse over the winter. Mine gets brought into a cool south facing room but if we don't have a fierce winter, I may risk it out in my own glasshouse.

I should, however, imagine that the temperature issue means that we won't get fast growth on olives at all, although Rubarb will probably have warmer and sunnier summers than I do which may help him.

Yeah thats very true,
I think im kind'a lucky they should be able to be outside most of the year here except pretty servre winters but Scotland is another matter.
I have family that live in the sticks in Iverness and not a lot grows taller than waist height there and when it does its in valleys ect due to the weather, summer you can't hardly go outside due to midges and every morning the flower beds have caught the attention of the local roaming deer population................ having said that, loverly place tho and stunning to look at.

I'm in awe of such comitment, im not sure of Perthsire but it can't be that much diferent weather wise.

My root btw has now been removed, you can't see it in the orignal photos as it was covered in soil but theres a huge 90 deg bend (or what I would call a knee cap where it balls up) of a root that is now on the surface of the soil, i still have a few finer roots to trim from this but only when they ahave thickened up a bit.

P.S. Fiona

I resisted the temptation of repotting this into a novelty hedgehog pot I saw at a local garen centre , a nice cute face with the back hollowed out for the plant (I'm joking)

I'm not a great pot man and don't really get the importance of stature of a vintage japanese or chinese pot, sure it's nice to have something thats worth a lot but would rather use any pot that suits a plant or garden even is ok in my book, this blue one is only a temp thing atm just to get it out of the plastic nursery pot and give some shallownes to the eye.
I would agree it's pretty awfull but compared with the photos after trimming before it was repotted its 100% better