Incredible olives!!!!

[Andrew Legg]

Hi All,

Today I went on a dig looking for olives, and was absolutely amazed to find trees that can only be hundreds if not thousands of years old. Trees like I have never seen before, and I never thought I'd go on an olive dig and come home saying that the trees were too amazing to dig!!! We dug up three smaller trees and I'll post photos of my two later, but for now, have a look at these big'uns!

The trees were in a dry rivine, and formed an amazing canopy.

Olives everywhere.JPG

The base of this root over rock is about a meter across!

Root over rock olive 01.JPG

And here's another one - the same size and covered in moss - also on a rock. . . .

Root on rock 03.JPG

Have a look at this one with a bridge between the trees. That bridge must have been a ground layering from a low branch formed many hundreds of years ago!!!

Big olive with bridge.JPG

And then there was Methuselah - there are simply no words for the beauty of this tree!

Methusela 01.JPG

and look at the size of it!!!! How old must this tree be?

Methusela 03.JPG

At this point, I put the camera away as I had to start digging. More to come.

Cheers,

Andrew

[kcpoole]

What an amazing find
the last one is particularly nice and no wonder why you did not dig. Awesome!

Ken

[Psymo]

[alpineart]

Hi Andrew , there is some incredible trunks and tree's there . Give a different spin on olive design that's for sure . Thanks for posting .

Cheers Alpineart

[Olivecrazy]

Sweet olive trees you have over there let me at them

Hi Andrew , there is some incredible trunks and tree's there . Give a different spin on olive design that's for sure . Thanks for posting .

Cheers Alpineart

I agree alpineart we see a lot of olive bonsai that are stumps with straight trunks that are carved an side branches myself im trying to look for something different theses days the olives in the pictures above are amazing

[Barry1]

Wow Andrew they are some amazing trees ,what did you end up collecting ?

[yoshida]

wow

[Olivecrazy]

I need to see them 3 smaller olives you collected its killn me i can only amagine what would be found in an around a olive patch like that picture please please

[vgarth]

So these are not in Australia? What country are they in? Because there wouldn't have been any olive trees in Aus from before European settlement.

[Andrew Legg]

Wow Andrew they are some amazing trees ,what did you end up collecting ?

Hey Barry,

What I collected in the end was a bit boring. I got one for a friend of mine who can't dig as a result of childhood polio, and one for mwah. She is into small trees, so I got her this one (only about 3 cms across):

IMG_6171.JPG

I got this one for myself:

IMG_6173.JPG

Scuse the late night flash photos! This one needs quite a bit of work, and I see the tree as the bit in the middle with the movement and deadwood. I'll post a few more pics once it is cleaned up.

[Andrew Legg]

I need to see them 3 smaller olives you collected its killn me i can only amagine what would be found in an around a olive patch like that picture please please

OK, so now you have seen the ones I collected at this location. Cute and quite nice, but we spent so much time looking around that we did not have time to dig too much. We also did not want to overstay our welcome, but we've been invited back. Today however I went for another dig at our local club dig site. You are gonna wet yourself when you see what we took out of there!!!!!!! Calling the one tree bonsai may be pushing it . . . . I'll get more pics up on Monday (your Tuesday morning probably) so come check those out then. I'll post them in this thread.

Cheers,

Andrew

[Andrew Legg]

So these are not in Australia? What country are they in? Because there wouldn't have been any olive trees in Aus from before European settlement.

Hey VG,

I live in Cape Town, South Africa. Olea europaea var. africana is indigenous to my area, so these trees must have been growing for a very long time. I have no accurate way to know, but I can only imagine that they have a story or two to tell!!!

Cheers,

Andrew

[Greth]

We have one on our place with a similar sized trunk, and European settlement only goes back to about 1840 in this area. No Im not digging it, but I do have my eye on one in a neighbours paddock which has been constantly grazed, when we get the backhoe working properly..