AusBonsai

I have just defoliated one of my olives, have let it run free for a while to strengthen up then cut it right back to start some new branching, thought I'd share


Before ...





After ...

Hi Ozzy , mate i love the movement on this trunk . I have tried defoliating olives but it doesn't appear to do much compared to decidiuos tree's my experience shows it stalls the tree somewhat and can result in partial die back .

I have had good results continually cutting the new shoots to 1-2 pair of leaves depending on which way i want the new growth to go , up, down or sideways forcing the buds to grow from the leaf nodes left on the branch .

I can see a ripper tree here , good stock like this is the best place to start .

Cheers Alpine

Very keen to see how this one bounces back.

Hi Alpine, I haven't had too much trouble with die back, the main reason I defoliate the olives is not so much to get smaller leaves but moreso to sort out the branch structure and get some nice new leaves also, I like getting right back to the skeleton so I can see whats going on.

Just an update on this, has come back nicely ...

A really nice olive and it has bounced back well.
Would you consider potting it up a bit so you could encourage some new roots to tidy up the nebari.

This is a great looking olive, for me the pot doesn't do the tree/base justice, I would like to see it in something a bit shallower.
The movement in the tree looks incredibly natural-not "forced"

Yes it still needs a lot of work and tidying up ... and a new pot.

Fine tree. It's not easy to make that shape work.

Gavin