I repot a Meyer’s Lemon and Olea europea today to run a test about success with summer repot. I watched the Olive experiment and was impressed. I have young stock so went with more of a compress and elongate potting tonight! Please critique and give me your thoughts!
I repotted a small olive yesterday. It had a nice root pad developing so it was an easy repot. I just about doubled the pot volume since I want it to thicken up some and also increased the particle size of the soil to 3-6 mm rather than 1-6 mm in the previous pot. It had been 4 years since the last and was still draining, but I want to encourage more growth. Now I just need to avoid another nasty scale infestation like I had a couple of years ago.
In the confined environment, the olive will be slow to develop girth. Each leaf on your olive has the ability to produce buds and I would develop the branching lower on the tree as they emerge while keeping the top portion as sacrifice to help thicken somewhat faster. This yeah I tested out pinching my olive to encourage bud development throughout the branch and I was very happy with my tree’s response. Don’t be afraid to cut back aggressively on olives. While it’s small, you could wire movement into it, as they can be fairly flexible.
My thoughts are that if you are happy with it, that’s what is most important. Having fun and enjoying your creation is the best part of the hobby!
I have been growing olives from seed since the late 80’s and have witnessed how restricted growth is when kept in small pots. If you want a more mature looking tree (thick trunk, dense branching, etc) consider moving to a larger pot. Here is an example from 2004. This was grown from seed in bonsai-style containers… This tree was probably 5-10 years at the time of the photo. As you can see, it looks very young and un-interesting
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