Large Olive Collection

[Damian79]

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?

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[Watto]

I'm having a vote for cutting flat now.

[greg27]

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.

[Rob.Eggers]

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.

[nozila]

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.

[greg27]

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!

[Damian79]

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.

[nozila]

Stolen from a user on bonsainut

These are invert rooted olives





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[Damian79]

Stolen from a user on bonsainut

These are invert rooted olives





Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Im So confused lol