Travel0 min ago
Olive tree
6 Answers
Some years ago I was given an olive tree in a huge and very heavy pot which has lived on a sunny patio ever since.
The tree is about ten feet high with trunk no thicker than my wrist. I wondered last year if it was alright, - some bare twigs - but am now quite concerned. Unlike in previous winters, it lost all its leaves, but I thought the problem was the extreme winter we have had. Still, I recall that olives do survive harsh winters in Greece. There are two small new leaves growing half-way up the trunk, and nothing else so far
Question 1 - what are the chances of more leaves appearing as the weather warms up ?
Question 2 - what are the chances it is beyond hope ?
Question 3 - if I have to get rid of the tree, assuming the roots are totally pot-bound, how do I get the root-mass out of the rather beautiful pot, which the donor told me was Italian and cost £400 , without the least damage to the pot ?
The tree is about ten feet high with trunk no thicker than my wrist. I wondered last year if it was alright, - some bare twigs - but am now quite concerned. Unlike in previous winters, it lost all its leaves, but I thought the problem was the extreme winter we have had. Still, I recall that olives do survive harsh winters in Greece. There are two small new leaves growing half-way up the trunk, and nothing else so far
Question 1 - what are the chances of more leaves appearing as the weather warms up ?
Question 2 - what are the chances it is beyond hope ?
Question 3 - if I have to get rid of the tree, assuming the roots are totally pot-bound, how do I get the root-mass out of the rather beautiful pot, which the donor told me was Italian and cost £400 , without the least damage to the pot ?
Answers
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Atalanta, I can't offer advice about your own tree, but we have a pot grown olice tree out in the garden, which has survived last winter, it has all its leaves and looks well. We don't wrap it up at all in the winter, just leave it out.
If you have new leaves, all is not lost - I would leave it a little longer, then perhaps trim off some of the extremities to see if they are in fact dead, and if they are, then cut it back further.
We have lost several of our exotics altogether last winter - 18 year old oleander bushes etc., all gone completely due to the cold.
All I can suggest regarding your pot is - if it's a shaped pot - that you carefully slice the roots as close to the tree as possible so you can pull the trunk out, then work round the roots by hand, pulling out a clump at a time. This is one of the problems of pots which curve in at the top!
If you have new leaves, all is not lost - I would leave it a little longer, then perhaps trim off some of the extremities to see if they are in fact dead, and if they are, then cut it back further.
We have lost several of our exotics altogether last winter - 18 year old oleander bushes etc., all gone completely due to the cold.
All I can suggest regarding your pot is - if it's a shaped pot - that you carefully slice the roots as close to the tree as possible so you can pull the trunk out, then work round the roots by hand, pulling out a clump at a time. This is one of the problems of pots which curve in at the top!
If its been in a pot for 10y I expect its short on nutrients. Feed it:
http://www.rodsgarden...om/plantnutrients.htm
http://www.rodsgarden...om/plantnutrients.htm
I have today cut mine right down and am hoping for signs of life. I am not feeling at all optimistic. Last winter was too much for the poor thing.
Curved pots are just awful and it takes ages. But I do what Boxtops does. I have just unfortunately broken a pot doing just this, but it wasn't worth £400.00.
Curved pots are just awful and it takes ages. But I do what Boxtops does. I have just unfortunately broken a pot doing just this, but it wasn't worth £400.00.
Olives are slow growing in a UK climate so don't expect new growth to appear quickly. One year a deer ate all the leaves on our olive tree and it took ages to regrow.When we moved to france our olive tree aquired a new lease of life and grew more in one year as it had in the previous 5 or 6. They can stand cold but not wet cold and like a well drained soil preferably with a chalk / limestone bias. If you have leaves appearing then it probably OK. Keep it in the warmest sunniest spot you can find.(out of the reach of deer)
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