What is this tree? And is it workable?

[jessepap]

Hi all. So I just dug up this tree and broke off what looks to be the main root in the process.

Any idea what this is? Olive variety?

Have I stuffed it by the look of the roots?

I thought I could chop the trunk just about the fork and see how it goes planted on an angle

Thoughts?!

[KIRKY]

Looks like an Olive to me. Yes every tree is workable just depends on what you want to do with it.
Cheers
Kirky

[Jake fowler]

The upper leaves look like olive but the base of the trunk is very thin compared to olives much smaller that i have collected. The leaves are quite large so possibly a different olive variant? If it is olive no harm in cutting the tap root off. I sometimes cut all roots off if they are deep. All the best with it

[shibui]

Well done Jesse. I don't think you can call yourself a bonsai grower in SA without an olive. You will probably start to notice that these grow everywhere as feral weeds so they are fair game for bonsai people to collect (with appropriate permission) and convert to bonsai.
Jake is telling you that there are far better olives out there if you care to look around a bit more. Many have fantastic fat base of trunk.
Don't worry about roots. We generally cut the entire base off larger collected olives and they just grow new roots and keep on growing. I would cut it off cleanly just under those large surface roots then cut those 2 long roots to a couple of cm each side of the trunk.

Try searching olive on Ausbonsai and see what others have been collecting and what they are doing with them. More search generally should give some more olive bonsai in South Africa, USA and Europe.
Olives are a great species and, over there, you can get them for the cost of a car trip and a box to grow it in.

Probably cut the trunk of that one a fair bit lower - around 10-15cm high? - and try to grow a smallish tree to suit the thinner trunk.
Olives will survive transplant almost any time of year. Over here we have had good success with spring and early autumn digs but I've seen collection almost all months of the year.

[Matt S]

Yeah, definitely an olive. There's a lot of variation in the wild olives in both the leaves and bark textures, but that's what you have dug.

The trunk is really long and straight so I'd be cutting it as follows:

dug olive.jpg

You don't need roots on collected olives as there's a lot of stored energy in the lignotuber so just plant it in some potting mix and keep it moist and it should respond nicely. I soak the stump in Seasol overnight before planting but that's optional and I only do it to make me feel like I'm giving it it's best shot at surviving, I don't have any evidence that it improves the success rate! Stumps dug up in Winter usually produce shoots by summer but I don't know how long it will take this time of year.

Good Luck!

[Jake fowler]

Stumps dug up in Winter usually produce shoots by summer but I don't know how long it will take this time of year.

I dug some 3 or 4 weeks ago and most are already shooting new buds

[jessepap]

thanks all

whilst not the perfect tree with the straight and thin trunk i understand, i was really happy to find it - very close to my home in a neighboring property so not much time or work required to obtain. Something to start with in any case and i figure i can work up from here and find a thick one at a later stage.

I cut back most of the top and stuck in a pot but tonight i will cut the trunk right down and clean up the roots - Matt i think i will go to around your top red line. thanks for helping there.

once that is done i guess its a wait and see and hope for some shoots.

[shibui]

I think it is good to get some practice with less valuable weeds before tackling really good ones.
having a go at trees like this gives people some ideas of what can be done and what is needed to collect.
When it sprouts madly that will also build confidence that transplanting trees is not really so difficult after all

[jessepap]

I think it is good to get some practice with less valuable weeds before tackling really good ones.
having a go at trees like this gives people some ideas of what can be done and what is needed to collect.
When it sprouts madly that will also build confidence that transplanting trees is not really so difficult after all

Very well said - i am not that fussed that this is not the 'perfect' trunk etc etc, i will cut it down and hopefully can get it to sprout a bit and turn it into something small and OK looking after a few years.

[terryb]

The upper leaves look like olive but the base of the trunk is very thin compared to olives much smaller that i have collected. The leaves are quite large so possibly a different olive variant? If it is olive no harm in cutting the tap root off. I sometimes cut all roots off if they are deep. All the best with it

Agree. Could it be a grafted tree where the scion is overgrowing the stock?

[shibui]

Could it be a grafted tree where the scion is overgrowing the stock?

That's possible but it is far more common for olives to grow these large, swollen bases just above the roots. I guess it is a mechanism for storing food and energy so they can survive tough summers or bad years in their natural habitat which tends to be pretty dry and rocky.
When we dig bigger trees they often have a big,round, swollen base with roots sticking out the bottom. Trees that are a little older again start to have new lateral roots growing out of the sides of the bulb bit but it does not really matter. Olives can be 'flat bottomed' - cut with a chainsaw through the widest part and plant the stump, even if it doesn't have any roots at all. All the resources stored in that trunk soon get new roots and shoots growing and you end up with a wide trunk tree with flat, shallow roots - perfect for bonsai.

I suspect this olive is quite young - probably only a couple of years so it hasn't had time to grow the trademark bulb yet but that thicker section is the start. Maybe when they are in really good conditions, like this one was, they don't feel the need to waste resources on a thick trunk and go for height instead?

[jessepap]

Here it is.
Much of the root base chopped off and the top obviously gone.

I had planned to have gone shorter per Matt's suggestion but the distance between the two cuts was so small the trunk would have been only about 2-3cm.

Question - is it better to cut off the two suckers now or just leave and who cares?
They just seem like such low branches which wouldn't belong long term??

What do we think?!!

[shibui]

You are correct that the suckers probably won't be part of the tree but this is still a long way from bonsai. Probably allow 5-10 years for this one.
In the meantime those suckers are probably doing the tree the world of good. They are the only leaves it has so it can still gather some light an make limited food to help with recovery.
They will not do any harm in the next couple of years and may just help.
I also like to keep a couple of back up insurance policies on collected trees in case the main parts somehow don't shoot new buds. The suckers may not be ideal but at least you'l have something to fall back to if the worst happens.