Bubble Leaf Olive
Posted: June 17th, 2010, 1:58 pm
I was talking about this tree in another thread and Chris keeps asking me for a picture of it so I thought I would post it up.
I bought this tree last year of Ray. Nothing special but just wanted one to experiment with. Chopped the top of and plunked it in a bonsai pot. It seemed healthy enough but I am sure there has been no new growth. Also the soil was staying wet too long and then drying out all of a sudden.
I took it out of the pot a little while ago and found as the top there had been practically no growth of the roots so it was not a desirable environment for the roots, I decided to repot into a more upright pot(better drainage) with a large coarse layer on the bottom. The medium is now Akadama and zeolite. The idea was to create a small area for water storage while maintaining room for good growth in the future.
The water use has been much better since and I feel confident it has a healthy situation even if the roots are using hardly any water. As you can see it does not look like the tree is suffering it just has not decided to grow yet. Maybe this is in line with what I hear about olives sulking for some time for whatever reason? Maybe this species is just very slow at this stage don't know?
Chris has suggest a more soil mix for the tree but I am keen to see how this setup goes for a season. Has anyone else got one of Ray's bubble leafs?
I bought this tree last year of Ray. Nothing special but just wanted one to experiment with. Chopped the top of and plunked it in a bonsai pot. It seemed healthy enough but I am sure there has been no new growth. Also the soil was staying wet too long and then drying out all of a sudden.
I took it out of the pot a little while ago and found as the top there had been practically no growth of the roots so it was not a desirable environment for the roots, I decided to repot into a more upright pot(better drainage) with a large coarse layer on the bottom. The medium is now Akadama and zeolite. The idea was to create a small area for water storage while maintaining room for good growth in the future.
The water use has been much better since and I feel confident it has a healthy situation even if the roots are using hardly any water. As you can see it does not look like the tree is suffering it just has not decided to grow yet. Maybe this is in line with what I hear about olives sulking for some time for whatever reason? Maybe this species is just very slow at this stage don't know?
Chris has suggest a more soil mix for the tree but I am keen to see how this setup goes for a season. Has anyone else got one of Ray's bubble leafs?