AusBonsai

Got this Olive from Don Deluca. Thanks to Andrew and Ron for bringing it over and buying my pots so I had enough money to buy it for the $100 that it cost me
With the dust storms Don didn't have much soil left out in Hay and this Olive was no exception. In was growing in about 1 cm of soil if that. I repotted it into a very sandy mix and trimmed back to try and see what I had a month or so ago.
I have never worked with olives before so I had to give it plenty of thought on where to go. Finding a way to incorporate the leader with the amazing flare on the base of these collected olives is a bit of a challenge.
This is what I came up with.

That's a very fine start there mate. They are amazing stock to work with, Just about indestructible, and very forgiving.
The foliage reduces well with defoliation. Like all tree's once you have the style your happy with. Looking forward to this tree's progression.

Cheers Pup

Thanks Pup. I am still unsure how fast they grow? Everything else sounds great! I never thought of defoliating them. Sounds like alot of work to me

Bretts wrote:Thanks Pup. I am still unsure how fast they grow? Everything else sounds great! I never thought of defoliating them. Sounds like alot of work to me

It is a lot of work, but to get good ramification it is a bonus. Just look at the trees from Taiwan.
They get it done regularly.

Cheers Pup

I thought it might be like defoliating a seiju elm
I guess I leave the defoliating for a season or two while I work on the structure?

Still not sure how fast they develop. I thought Olive where fairly slow growers?

Great base Bretts, its going to be a nice tree!!

Watch for suckers from around the base. They sprout continuously and outgrow the structure you have painstakingly arranged above if you leave them for any time. hope it goes well.

to right about a great first styling brett you have done well it gives me some great inspiration to work with on mine i like where ya going with it


look forward to seeing it further down the track


jamie

Thanks guys I will watch those suckers

they actually need alot of salt air and as your in orange cant see it thriving i might know a guy up in the sunshine coast that could look after it hahaha
is that a trunk front and back

dayne wrote:they actually need alot of salt air and as your in orange cant see it thriving i might know a guy up in the sunshine coast that could look after it hahaha
is that a trunk front and back

sunny coast...if ya gonna go that far and if ya want some salty air send it further up here to hervey bay, im not far from the beach

jamie

No luck there I will be glad to have another reason to move back to the coast
There was a trunk left and right but not front and back.

Verry nice brett. I have several small ones and they seem to take ages to get going.
I will be waiting a long time for mine i think

Ken

good start there pal

Brett,

Mate a fine tree it will be. I do like a nice sumo.those large cuts youll be able to carve out no problem, With defoliation pup is right as always i just did mine which took about 2 hrs. If you dont mind ill put a pic up tomorrow to show .