AusBonsai

Hey everyone this is my first thread as I am relatively new to the forum. Here are a few olives I have recently dug here in the foot hills of SA. I have got about half a dozen olives in the past few months. Will keep the photos coming as I start to make something of the trees. The one in the bonsai pot was dug almost 4 months ago. The second photo is from today. Once it gets some strength I am going to carve the thinner trunk. The other one was dug a few weeks ago. Cheers

Welcome Jake!

What a first thread - you’re not mucking around. Bang! I’m envious already!

Good stock - I look forward to watching these progress.


Bonsai teaches me patience.
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Hi Jake,
I know these are olives but like all collected trees these should be allowed to recover to regain some vigour. This is especially true if they were “flat bottomed” as is typically carried out with collected olives. That first olive doesn’t appear to have much room for root growth.

Look forward to see what you do with these.

I dug a few more olives today. The one with the shoots on
it was dug a few months ago. Still need to do some carving but slowly building up the collection

Damn Jake where are you getting these olives from?! Great material you got there to work with. Hoping to go on a dig soon

You may be the king of the olives soon Jake. They all have some great bases so that is a good start. Development and carving to come in the next few years should keep you busy!

Watto wrote:You may be the king of the olives soon Jake. They all have some great bases so that is a good start. Development and carving to come in the next few years should keep you busy!

Thanks Watto. I am possibly going out again tomorrow. I won't keep all these. As soon as my least favourite ones have some growth and can be styled I will be selling them

Any tricks i should know when digging out wild olives? Seems like a fair amount of root is sacrificed.

Damonmate wrote: ↑August 24th, 2019, 11:35 am Any tricks i should know when digging out wild olives? Seems like a fair amount of root is sacrificed.

Nah just chop anything in the way and dig around the base and power reef it back and forth until it is free. I have flat bottomed all of these and all are quite happily still alive

Feral olives generally have a swollen base, a few deeper roots and maybe a few lateral roots out of the swollen part if you are lucky.
As Jake says, dig around the base but no need to go too deep. Roots are quite brittle so rocking the trunk back and forth a few times usually breaks off any deeper roots and you can pull it out of the hole. I find it best to leave the trunk tall for some leverage then cut it down after you get the tree out.
They don't seem to mind having no roots so many of us just cut through the widest part of the bulge with a chainsaw and plant the top part but you can plant the entire trunk base if you are concerened.
Some can take up to 12 months to shoot so don't get too worried if they don't shoot immediately.
Timing is pretty open. Our club has dug olives successfully in spring, late spring and late summer.

Here is an update on one of the olives I dug. Still needs some work but I think it is progressing nicely

Loving your work Jake. I've got a few stumps from Brownhill Creek - can't believe how many there are around. One was growing out the side of a low cliff face, I just jumped up, grabbed the trunk and the whole thing came down. Good fun!

Jake fowler wrote: ↑June 21st, 2019, 6:10 pm I dug a few more olives today. The one with the shoots on
it was dug a few months ago. Still need to do some carving but slowly building up the collection

Geez Jake, your powering into Olives... lovely base on the last two photo you posted earlier. Well played in digging those bad units up.

MJL wrote: ↑November 11th, 2019, 8:06 pm

Jake fowler wrote: ↑June 21st, 2019, 6:10 pm I dug a few more olives today. The one with the shoots on
it was dug a few months ago. Still need to do some carving but slowly building up the collection

Geez Jake, your powering into Olives... lovely base on the last two photo you posted earlier. Well played in digging those bad units up.

I have a problem I went and dug 6 more yesterday haha

So yesterday I went and dug 4 more olives. I found one with great taper. Started digging it and it ended up being quite large under the soil. My back pack was full and I was running low on energy so I left it. it was eating away at me yesterday i did not collect it so I went back this morning and it came home with me. I will have to stop for a while as I have no room now until I sell some off