Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => General Gardening => Topic started by: Sharonx on May 01, 2010, 16:19
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Hi,
I have two Olive trees in large pots in the garden. Well established and I have had them quite a few years.
The leaves are going Brown and dropping off, which even in the Autumn this doesn't happen.
The only thing I can think of that may have caused it, is that they did get rather water logged in their pots due to the large amount of Rain & Snow we had this year. It didn't drain off & they sat in water for quite a while as the pots are too heavy to tip to drain.
Basically I just want to know if they will be ok, and is there anything I can do to nurse them back?
Thanks
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My garden used to be an old olive grove and I've got I've got several new olive trees planted in-ground. When the nursery man gave me the planting advice he said that if anything they should be planted slightly above soil level with a slope running away from the roots in order to help drainage. He said they hate wet feet and that wet is more of a killer than cold, which they can tolerate to a fair degree. I guess you could try cutting them back really hard ( here the trees are sold completely scalped with often nary a leaf in sight and you buy them on trust! )It's such a shame if yours are goners because they are not cheap and they are so dramatic. Maybe turfing out the old waterlogged soil would let you see what's going on and allow you to re-pot in a more open gritty soil. In any case, hang on until at least mid-summer before you jettison them, cos they may shoot from ground level.
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I think catllar is right and that they may well be waterlogged.
If you tip them out of the pots and wrap the rootball in newspaper it will help it dry out without drying out too much, if you see what I mean. You can then repot into new soil with plenty of drainage. If there are white rootlets they will be fine :D
They can take hard pruning so if they look really bad, don't worry they might grow back if you can save the roots.