Olive tree - advice please

Hi everyone, hope your enjoying your saturday. The weather here is just lovely and ive been out this morning to a plant sale and the garden centre!!

I have a quick question im hoping you can help me with, regarding my mums olive tree. It doesnt look too well, its about three years old an it stand about 3ft high at present an its in a small pot, but is it true that you shouldnt replant them until they are pot bound?? has anyone got any ideas what to feed it on to get it a bit healthier??

Thank you in advance xx

 

If its been in the same pot for three years I would say it probably needs potting on into something larger.

Maybe only three inches bigger and use a JI compost with a bit of extra grit.

Olives are great at "surviving", but if you want them to look good you need to feed regularly, during the growing season, if pot grown.
Any balanced liquid feed will be OK, such as 'miracle grow' or similar, but dont feed for a few weeks after repotting, let the roots start to move into the new compost first.

 

Any tips on revitalising an older & slightly neglected olive? Its about 15 years old, 8ft tall, pot bound and quite straggly. Ideally I'd like to keep it in the same pot. I was going to try to tease out the roots and remove some of the old soil but it sounds as if olives don't like root disturbance .

 

I am not 100% on this but 99% that olive trees are cut to the ground and the root ball dug up and moved to a new site as necessary ,this is in Greece etc, and they are the only trees this can be done with ,as it will just grow again quite happily.

 

I'm not sure what you actually want charly, I get the impression your trying to create a large bonsai.

I'm sure its possible, but you need to feed well and trim it as it grows.

As its 8ft high it might just be a bit far gone and better planted out somewhere.
Small cuttings are readily available and cheap if you want to start the process over again.

 

I bought a 6 ft tall Olive tree (£9.99)from my local garden centre's bargain corner over 3 years ago and planted in my garden. It has survived so far though after reading the above I think I will try to feed it a bit more this year.
It even set flowers last year though I did not get any olives, not that I expected any.