AusBonsai

Hi Guys
I managed to pull this beauty out yesterday from my local dig spot, with a good amount of the roots still intact for a change . It has been sitting in a Seasol bath over night, as I do with all my Olives. Should I cut the base flat now ( Which I normally do) or pot it up and flatten it out at a later date as the roots are ok?

I'm having a vote for cutting flat now.

Definitely flat-cut now. No point in letting roots develop that you're going to cut off in the future, especially with an olive where they'll survive with zero roots.

I recently dug about 6 or 7 stumps on the SA Bonsai club dig.
I used a chain saw to flat cut the bases on the two big ones I dug and a reciprocating saw to do the same to the smaller ones.
I put them all in big flat plastic tubs with normal potting mix and put them in a sunny spot.
They have gone crazy with shoots everywhere.
Being an olive dig virgin, I was very sceptical that they would survive with no roots at all.
Every single one of them has more shoots that I could have imagined-even with roots!!!
Don't waste time leaving roots that won't be used later.
No cut, no glory seems to be the mantra for olives.

I've left roots on olives Ive recently collected because they were that dense and thick that my saw (recep and chain) didnt make a dent at chipping away the base. That said, I recently watched and read about inverted rooted olives so if I were to cut them off I'd plant it upside down - a little off topic.

Leaving roots on is fine, and will likely speed up recovery/development, but the advantage of flat-cutting is that it's easier to fit your tree in a shallow bonsai pot when the time comes. I recently repotted the first olive I collected and was kicking myself when I saw how much was left below the soil level; the pot I had in mind for this tree is fairly shallow and definitely won't work.

Interesting idea re. planting the roots though; you could get some really cool-looking trees that way!

nozila wrote: ↑October 8th, 2020, 9:43 pm I've left roots on olives Ive recently collected because they were that dense and thick that my saw (recep and chain) didnt make a dent at chipping away the base. That said, I recently watched and read about inverted rooted olives so if I were to cut them off I'd plant it upside down - a little off topic.

Mmm. Very interesting. I might give that a go.

Stolen from a user on bonsainut

These are invert rooted olives





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nozila wrote: ↑October 9th, 2020, 8:24 pm Stolen from a user on bonsainut

These are invert rooted olives





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Im So confused lol