Young Olive Tree HELP!!

I have 2 young potted olive trees - one is fine but the other is going brown and is plainly dying. They have both been treated the same, watered when getting dry and although there have been a few minus temps at night, days have been quite warm ( we live in SW France) What am I doing wrong and what can I do to save the plant? They were a birthday gift and don't want to lose them!!

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner

Olives can tolerate a few frosts with no damage so i'd suspect something is having a go at root level, might be worth re potting & checking, then giving it a good soak.

If its dying already then you've not got much to loose by trying.

 

Just had another thought, I read recently about a disease affecting olive trees, but can find the article.

Anyone else come across that one? It was either in Gardeners World mag or the RHS one.

 

Are they both in the same pot? If they are I'd repot the healthy one first in clean soil & get the roots as clean as possible just in case there's something going on there.
If they're in different pots then it may be position. In my experience (very limited) Olives like to be quite dry especially in cold weather. I protected the trunk & shoots of two trees one winter and lost them both but read that the problem may have been cold wet soil so now I deny them water from about November & wrap and over-wrap the pots, I put lengths of pipe insulation on the main trunk & that's it - so far that's worked. Re: position, I've had pairs of trees on both sides of my front door, I've tried bay and all sorts of others and I always lose the one on the left side, I couldn't believe it but now I think there's just a different microclimate, one side gets slightly more sun but also gets more wind. I find the same with window boxes so have just given up on pairs. Hope that helps.

 

I have a 3 year old olive in a pot and do nothing to it except cover with a fleece bag and drape a fleece over the top of the soil through the winter to give it a little protection, and I also put a piece of slab under the pot so it drains well,seldom water it during dry spells , I think re pot it and place it somewhere sheltered and see if it recovers, olives will grow again from the roots so give it a chance.

 

Thanks guys - have re-potted and put in a more sheltered spot. Will see what happens. Did not know could grow back from roots, so will keep fingers crossed. Do they need feeding at all, during the summer?

 

I feed mine in the summer.

Found that article, it was about Olive Scab Fungus, causes spots on the leaves, makes them drop prematurely, reduces vigor but rarely fatal.

Source : The Garden, RHS.

 

Have you ever seen in mediteranean countries ,families digging up stumps and removing them to somewhere else,usually accompanied by a wizened old crone (her dowry) for road widening etc

 

I've had a think and no, I definately haven't.

 

Long shot but if all else fails you might look at feeding and whether you've fed too much or too little. I know from experience of bonsai trees that all trees which are created equal don't stay that way for long and each needs to be treated individually. Olive trees don't need much feeding and probably a light feeding in early Spring is enough. Even so I'd say prune back to a bud if it has buds and give a blast of weak Nitrogen to encourage new growth. Readily available is Baby Bio Original which has an NPK of 10.6:4.4:1.7. Weak organic bonsai fertiiser is highly suitable for olive trees: Omakase or the slightly more expensive Bio Gold both available on ebay UK.