Florida Garden

Olive Tree

I brought the Olive Tree from Willis Orchard Company over the internet. It arrived bare root. It also arrived wonky, but im sure it will sort itself out.

I planted this in December 2010 and so had to hope that it would survive the coldest frost on record ever!!! For the region. Got here in April to find it doing OK.

Olive Tree August 2018

Olive tree is now taller than the house.

Olive Tree August 2013

Keeps wanting to fall over and I keeping having to tied it up.

Olive Tree April 2013

Definately growing, but still less than a full blown tree, but im happy with its progress.

Olive Tree December 2012

Two years on and its sort of taking shape. I have uncovered a good 1-2 inches at the base that was built up with mulch. Ive decided that I put too much mulch on just about everything and so im going around digging down almost to the roots to see if that helps. Im more concerned about the damp effect on the crown and growing bark than the drought and loss of moisture etc. Where the bark was buried the bark layer is thin and weak, so much so that you can scrape it off, which I dont think is right. In the photo of the base you can see the extent to which it was buried. Other than keeping the bark moist it also meant that any moisture to the roots had to pass through that depth as well which would make me think that it was less likely to get moisture from showers and low levels of rain all the while keeping the crown damp and moist and suseptable to rot. I'll never use mulch again.

Olive Tree July 2012

Has quite a large shoot which needed staking as it was growing over to the side and falling over.

Olive Tree February 2012

Quite hard to see from the photo but this is coming along really well.

Olive Tree November 2011

This is doing really well and showing loads of new growth. Its produced at least 3-4 times its original biomass since I planted it last year or 11 months ago which I think is impressive considering that it had to discover its roots etc.

Olive Tree

Im pretty sure that this is a Picholine Olive Tree although I cant quite remember. The Willis Orchard Company site says they are "Picholine Olives are self-fertile and are known to be resistant to both drought and cold, and can adapt to a variety of temperatures and soils" which sounds about right. I pretty much remember them being the Picholine but I just cant find the reciept which is annoying.

They seem to be doing OK but its hard to tell after only 4 months. The photo above is April 2011. At least they survived the frost OK. The little spike in the photo above going up vertically nearer to the bottom of the main stalk is new growth so that cant be bad. Again, this is one of the plants that I really didnt want the neigbours strimming, it really doesnt look like much as all. I do the weeds with a pair of sissors, but thats mainly not to cut the Mexican Petunia cuttings that are in some cases only 2 inches tall and are pretty hard to spot even by my eye!!

One of the things is I tell people about my garden and I say, I have an olive tree, a bannana tree etc etc, but you really cant explain that they are so small, they all think they are massive specimens and I sit in my garden all day eating olives like a god. Maybe this picture will help out!! .

August 2011

The tree is going ok, the photo doesnt really show that but its put on some reasonable growth. Its still tiny though, but it at least survived being swamped.