Are Olive Trees Hardy?
This is the number one question in the UK and there is a definitive answer – Yes.
Olive trees are incredibly robust and can cope with a wide range of extremes. Villaggio Verde Olive trees are hard grown. All our trees are grown outdoors, not a poly-tunnel to be seen which means strength. No matter what the weather, our Olive trees experience it and that goes for a week of full hot sun right through to heavy snow.
There are, however, certain things to consider.
Do not let your potted Olive tree dry out in Winter.
Here, at Villaggio Verde, we have seen very low temperatures in the UK over the past few Winters. It has given us the opportunity to further research how the Olive trees react to sub-zero temperatures. Villaggio Verde have studied this at our facility based in Worcestershire, middle England, and a few years ago saw the lowest temperatures for 100 years, minus 19.2! What we learnt from this was that the roots of an Olive tree can withstand being deep frozen for 2 weeks, providing the tree was hydrated prior to the freeze. In other words, the trees we left dry suffered more than the trees which were watered. During these extreme in low temperatures, we observed that the ‘dry’ trees suffered frost damage into the main branches and occasionally into the trunk, whereas the hydrated trees suffered less. A good hard prune the following spring encouraged the trees to bounce back. Olive trees are a little like Willow trees. Pollard or even chainsaw straight through the middle of the trunk, and the trees will start to shoot from the point where the tree was cut.
Planting in the pots?
Olive trees do extremely well in pots and can cope with being pot bound providing the crowns is kept cropped and in shape. You must also remember to water your Olive trees more frequently when in pots. Consider building a simple bottomless box around the base of your trees. This can be simply done using new sleepers (not old, contaminated railway sleepers), purchased from your local builder’s merchant. They are cost effective and easy to cut and put together creating a very attractive container. Make the sleeper container as large as you wish in order to balance the crown of the Olive trees. This also provides soil areas in which to under-plant with a herb for example. After one season, the sleepers ‘silver’ providing a super and cost-effective planter.
Planting in the ground?
Olive trees thrive when planted directly into the ground. They prefer alkaline soils and are happiest in poor soils, sandy, gravel types and chalk. They are also fine in any free draining soil. The trees also grown well in clay, however, our wet UK climate means if you have clay soils, you should consider how long it takes for the water to drain. This is easy to test, as you simply need to dig a hole, fill it with water, and see how quickly the water drains away. If it is still full of water after a few hours then imagine the roots of the Olive tree during the winter, probably too wet. You can help this problem, by only half planting the root-ball and then grading a freer draining soil from the existing ground level to the top of the Olive tree root-ball. If you choose to plant this graded soil with lavender, for example, then the tree will appear natural. Only part planting the Olive tree also means you retain some height, so the Olive tree is viewed and enjoyed even more.