AusBonsai

Hi all, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Firstly I want to say that before posting I have searched the evergreen section, progression series, wiki and other internet bonsai forums etc, as well some of Chris and Ozzy's olive posts.
I have found a lot of really useful info for the collection of olives and read on many occassions how hardy they are etc and that you can collect them most times of the year.
A few days ago I came accross what I suspect is an African common olive (Olea Europea ssp. Africana) at a house that is being demolished locally. I spoke to the neighbours who new the former owners for many years and they told me that the entire property is being leveled (house and some of garden is already) and that by the end of January at the latest it will be just a block of land.
So...this post is kind of pointless because I will be collecting this olive no matter what, and I guess I will eventually find out if it lives or dies. But I am specifically wondering if anyone else has experience of collecting olive in the height of summer, and if they have had any success at doing so at this time of year?
Cheers, Dario.

Water, water, water. Throw the stump in a tub of water for a week before potting it up. Should be ok.

I agree with Rowan, just dig up the stump. Olives are tough as nails.

I collected some in the middle of a hot summer day last year. All survived. Take off a lot, or all, of the leaves/branches.

As above, leave them in a tub of water and some seasol (quite a bit) in the shade. A couple of weeks shouldn't do any harm; but if it's more than a week I would change the water/seasol once.

Thank you Rowan, Brian and TheNumber13!
It is encouraging to hear that others have also done this in the height of summer...will let you know how it goes.
Yes I will be removing all foliage and soaking the stump but I was only going to do so for a few days, but now I will increase it to a week...so thanks
Cheers, Dario.

G,day Dario I remember a story from Dorothy Koreshoff,( quote while on a workshop demonstration with the SA society we asked about olives as at this stage we were not aware of collecting in NSW.

At this point it was said that 100 were sitting on the rubbish tip and had been for 1 week, I rang my son in law told him to bring the trailer down.

We collected all of them middle of summer no less all 100 survived.)
So I would say, you are pretty safe this was way back in 1991.

Back from my hiatus Pup, Happy new year

Thanks for the information Pup, very reasuring...hopefully I have the same success
Happy 2012 to you to!
Cheers, Dario.