Olive- Input on initial large cutbacks?

[Rivka]

Guessing since you collected from someones yard it was locally? Could it be a "hardy" Olive? There's another side to Portland climate possibly not yet seen by you. Times of brutally cold Icy freezing windy weather there because of Columbia River gorge. Rain or thawed snow frozen all over everything for days. The brunt of this does not go too far south from you.

This plant has been growing outside in portland for many years, so it is clearly hardy, the two other matching plants i got, went into the ground and will be just fine.
i have lived in this region (in a number of cities thruout) for nearly half a century and know the weather and its variations very well.
the intense extremes that spawn out of the gorge thankfully are fairly contained in all but the worst of storms. its amazing how much more extreme things are just a short 10 miles in that direction!
And yeah portland certainly is good at having its every other year ice storm. thankfully they can be forecasted well in advance and are easy to plan for when you know what is coming.

 

[Graft]

Hi Rivka,

For what it's worth, I live in zone 8b too. I have two European olives in pots (not bonsai) that have survived outdoors for last 5 years without any special attention. The only tips I can give you on olives is that they like to be pot bound.

 

[leatherback]

Hi Rivka,

For what it's worth, I live in zone 8b too. I have two European olives in pots (not bonsai) that have survived outdoors for last 5 years without any special attention. The only tips I can give you on olives is that they like to be pot bound.

I have 7 olives too. Minimal protection (open shed) in winter suffices here too.

 

[petegreg]

That one appears to have fibrous bark. All the olives here have very smooth bark. Leaves and shoots on yours look similar though. Any chance it may be something other than Olea europea?

@Rivka , any chance it could be russian olive, Elaeagnus angustifolia?

 

[petegreg]

I have 7 olives too. Minimal protection (open shed) in winter suffices here too.

Do your olives drop all leaves if it's too cold in winter? One of mine did and I found an article saying that 6°C is a min temperature to keep it with leaves over winter. Then it had though time till early june to leaf out... I thought it'd been dead.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

do you agree with the visual Adair suggested just now?

Yes. Imagine the line of trunk that would be left. It has a nice graceful flow to it. Make sure to make your cuts concave, so when they heal they don't heal as bumps.

 

[Shibui]

Do your olives drop all leaves if it's too cold in winter? One of mine did and I found an article saying that 6°C is a min temperature to keep it with leaves over winter.

Is that 6C daytime or 6C min night time? We regularly get below freezing at nights in winter. Down to -4C on a few nights most winters and the European olives do not drop leaves. They even keep growing (slowly) right through winter here.

any chance it could be russian olive, Elaeagnus angustifolia?

That was my initial reaction too. There are a few different species that have olive as part of the common names in some places. The trunk in the original pics does not look smooth like European olive. I have not grown eleagnus so have no idea how it responds to hard pruning but judging by the new shoots in the photos it should be OK to cut hard.

 

[leatherback]

Do your olives drop all leaves if it's too cold in winter? One of mine did and I found an article saying that 6°C is a min temperature to keep it with leaves over winter. Then it had though time till early june to leaf out... I thought it'd been dead.

hm.. No. Mine drop leaves when they stay wet in winter and it gets cold. If it just freezes a few degrees and I remembered to take them out of the rain, they keep their leaves.

Did you repot in spring? Spring repots also damage them

 

[petegreg]

Is that 6C daytime or 6C min night time? We regularly get below freezing at nights in winter. Down to -4C on a few nights most winters and the European olives do not drop leaves. They even keep growing (slowly) right through winter here.

Probably min temperature. It's mentioned in quite a few articles for example here.

 

[petegreg]

hm.. No. Mine drop leaves when they stay wet in winter and it gets cold. If it just freezes a few degrees and I remembered to take them out of the rain, they keep their leaves.

Did you repot in spring? Spring repots also damage them

Hmmm, cold and wet could be an issue. Thank you both guys for sharing your experiences.

And yes, it was repotted in spring because it arrived in fall in a "bad" soil... and then it was sulking all the season. Following winter it dropped all its leaves, woke up in june and is doing great now. Graham is right on summer repotting . Just thinking about how to overwinter it this year.

 

[0soyoung]

That one appears to have fibrous bark. All the olives here have very smooth bark. Leaves and shoots on yours look similar though. Any chance it may be something other than Olea europea?

It looks like a so-called 'russian olive', Eleaegnus agustifolia, to me, which is also known as 'silver berry', but maybe one man's silver berry is just one of 50+ species of 'silver berries'.

At any rate, maybe have a look at 'silverberry' theads, @Rivka

 

[Rivka]

It very well may be not the plant i thought it was, and all I’m going off is generic terms a lady told me, which of course means not much at all.

i did look up Eleaegnus agustifolia and the flowers are located completely differently, mine had flowers when i first got it, so i dont think its that. Im going to go hunt down the pictures i took the day i got it and see if that can shed light on it’s identity.