Houseplant olive at home. How to grow an olive tree at home: secrets

To grow olive trees you need temperate climate. If you live in a region where the weather for this plant is unfavorable, then planting can be done even in an apartment, providing the necessary temperature regime. How to grow an olive tree at home? Detailed instructions.

Choose a variety

First you need to choose a variety of olives. This condition is important because they have different purposes:

for eating;
for making butter;
for any purpose.

When planning to grow an olive tree at home, use dwarf plants. They are designed specifically for this.

Olives are dioecious. This means that both male and female cells are needed to produce fruits. Pollination in natural conditions produced by the wind. At home, you will have to do this yourself, using a brush or a piece of fur.

Olive propagation methods

Seedlings can be obtained in three ways:

using seeds;
planting a cutting;
through vaccination.

1. How to grow an olive tree from a stone

This method is time consuming. It takes 10-15 years from planting to fruiting. The sequence of actions is as follows:

Remove pits from fresh olives.
Soak them in a 10% lye solution overnight.
Rinse with warm water.
Dry with paper towel.
File a hard layer of the stone (to facilitate germination).
Plant the seed in the ground to a depth of 2 - 3 cm.
Expect germination for about 3 months, maintaining the optimum temperature + 18 C heat.

Important Tips:

For soil use a mixture of sand, turf and garden soil in a ratio of 2:1:1 with the addition of a small part of peat and lime (in total 25 g per 1 kg of land).
Pot choose small size. As the plant grows, it increases. This makes it easier to control watering. Olive does not tolerate excessive moisture.

The seedling is transplanted every year until it reaches the age of five. Then after 2-3 years.

2. Vegetative propagation

It's over fast way demonstrating how to grow an olive tree at home. Such a seedling will begin to bloom faster, inheriting everything varietal features. For vegetative propagation use cuttings or root offspring. The process takes place in several stages:

Prepare annual cuttings.
The cut site is treated with a drug that promotes rooting.
Cuttings are planted in wet sand (March), providing an optimal temperature regime of + 20 C. If you plant a cutting in a transparent container, you can control the process of root formation.
The sand is regularly moistened.
With help plastic bag a greenhouse is created above the cutting. After the roots appear, the stalk is transplanted into the soil.
On the permanent place the seedling is planted in autumn (August - September).

To shorten the period until the moment when the olive begins to bloom and bear fruit, it can be grafted using varietal plants.

3. Grafting an olive

Reproduction is carried out by budding. A cutting eye is cut from the stem, which is placed in a split on the bark. The first fruits appear after 8-10 years.

Olive tree care

Caring for a young plant consists in removing the lower leaves and new shoots. This will help give the plant the appearance of a tree. Shrunken, weakened or strongly vegetative shoots should also be removed.

The plant should be in the brightest place in the apartment, and in winter it needs additional lighting. Water it daily, but in small volumes. AT spring period top dressing is necessary complex fertilizers. In winter, water less and do not fertilize. They are transferred to another place (the least warm is + 10-12 C). During this period, laid flower buds. The plant blooms in spring.

Olive trees have been cultivated in the Mediterranean since ancient times. They were revered as sacred plants. And now the olive is a living symbol of holiness, abundance, peace, victory, wisdom, health, long fruitful life.

Olives have long been cultivated in Italy and Italians have a reverent attitude towards olive trees. Here, in the old olive groves, centuries-old olives still bear fruit!

Olive in medicine and cooking

The olive belongs to the olive family (Oleaceae). Of the 60 known species of olives, only olive european(Olea europaea).

olive trees all year round exposed to hot sunshine and the salubrious maritime climate of the Mediterranean. This gives unique properties not only to fruits, but also to olive leaves.

Archaeological documents confirm that beneficial features olive leaf have been known to man for several thousand years. The olive leaf, which has a pronounced antimicrobial effect, was used to mummify dead kings. It has also been used since ancient times for treatment as an anti-febrile agent and for the healing of festering wounds. A decoction of olive leaves is useful for normalizing blood pressure.

Interestingly, it is freshly picked olive fruits that are used for. However, fresh olives are not consumed due to unpleasant bitterness. But pickled or salted olives acquire an original taste and become a useful product.
Despite the abundance of oil in olives, they are not high in calories. Olive fruits are a valuable source of vitamin E, they include natural antioxidants.

Olive oil, widely used in cooking, is high in monounsaturated fatty acids that help lower blood cholesterol levels.

Biological features of the olive

Oliva - perennial, which is a long-liver due to the ability to self-repair. This is a drought-resistant fruit tree that can withstand short-term frosts (up to -10C).

Olive trees thrive in soils with adequate lime content. Olive roots are so strong that they develop well on rocky-sandy soil. Therefore, olive trees can grow even on rocks!
And the thing is that the olive root system is very powerful and highly branched - it is several times larger than the projection of the tree crown. And though the roots are on medium depth(up to 80 cm), this feature of the root system allows the olive to remain stable.

The trunk of an olive tree is usually no higher than a meter, the crown is wide and dense. The bark of young trees is ash-gray, and as it matures, it darkens and becomes rough.
At the junction of the roots and the trunk of the olive, a thickening is formed - the neck, which very often increases over time, grows. Young shoots grow from the neck of the olive every year. They must be removed regularly, otherwise the tree will turn into a huge bush.

The leathery leaves of the olive are small, lanceolate or oblong-oval, located opposite each other. The upper side of the leaf is dark green and the lower side is silvery gray.
During the wet and mild Mediterranean winter, the olive accumulates in the leaves a large number of spare starch. It serves the plant as a good support in spring and dry, waterless summer.

Interestingly, the olive leaf is slightly bent along the edges, due to which the area of \u200b\u200bheating the sheet by the sun's rays decreases. This special leaf structure helps the plant save moisture and successfully tolerate strong ones.
In the heat of the day, the pores of the leaves (stomata) of the olive are closed, and at the same time, the intensity of photosynthesis is much reduced without harm to the plant.

The evergreen leaves on the olive tree are replaced gradually; new leaves are formed from spring to autumn. The lifespan of a leaf is usually one year, very rarely it reaches two years.
The growth bud at the base of each olive leaf may be dormant. long time. It comes into growth only if necessary (for example, with strong pruning of shoots, with damage to leaves from hail, etc.).

Thanks to all these unique properties appears very valuable property olive tree - successfully resist negative factors and always recover from their impact.

Flowering and fruiting olive trees

Olive trees bloom from April to June. The time of their flowering depends on the place of growth, weather conditions and characteristics of the plant variety.
small fragrant flowers bisexual olives, white with a creamy tint, collected in axillary inflorescences.
The fruits of the olive are elongated-oval or round in shape, with oily pulp and a hard stone. Depending on the variety of the olive tree, its fruit weighs up to 15 g. When fully ripe, the olives become dark purple or black, often with a waxy coating.

Breeders have bred many varieties of European olives. The fruits of these olive varieties are used for oil production and as a food product.
All varieties of olives are divided by purpose into three groups:
- "oil" olives - for pressing oil from fruits (Olea europaea oleaster);
- "table" olives - for the use of fruits l "olivo coltivato (Olea europaea sativa);
- universal olives - with a double use of fruits, there are not so many such varieties.

The most popular "oily" olive varieties in Italy are: Canino, Caninese, Carboncella, Strana, Olivato, Raja, Rosciola, Salviana, Leccino. The percentage of oil content in their fruits is the highest.
The olive of the famous “oil” variety Leccino (“Leccino”) is grown not only in Italy, but throughout the world.

"Table" varieties of olive (Olea europaea sativa) have large, fleshy fruits. Very tasty such or marinated. However, the fruits of "table" varieties are unsuitable for oil production.

About 250 are now grown in Italy alone. modern varieties olives. However, along with them, the ancient varieties of "home" selection continue to grow and bear fruit in the olive orchards.
Some growers have grafted cuttings of new varieties onto their old olives. And now, from one such fruit-bearing tree, you can collect both “oil” and “table” olives.
An olive harvest is considered good when 25-35 kg of fruit are removed from the tree.

Pruning an olive tree

After harvesting the olives, the crowns of the olive trees are pruned.
This is a very responsible business, since the fruits of the olive are formed on biennial branches. Therefore, Italian gardeners usually invite a specialist "pruner" of olive trees (often this profession is inherited).

The crowns of olives are usually formed in the form of a bowl so that the sun's rays freely penetrate to each branch of the tree for uniform ripening of the fruit.

Olives can be admired at any time of the year, these trees are always beautiful.
Come to Italy!
And we will help readers of the site to visit the site most Beautiful places and see with unique ancient olive trees.

Elena and Evgenia Kulishenko (Guidonia, Italy)
http://italiatrad.3dn.ru

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olive house tree belongs to the Maslinov family. In its wild form, it can be found in subtropical regions, and the Mediterranean, Australia and Africa are considered to be its homeland. The olive is one of the oldest highly ornamental plants known to mankind. That is why they began to grow it at home as unusual specimens of domesticated garden crops. And they value the olive tree not only for its fruits, which are used in cooking, but also for their decorative effect.

What an evergreen olive tree in a pot looks like and how it blooms (with photo)

A houseplant called the olive tree or olive tree is evergreen. The lanceolate leaves, which are green above and silver-gray below, give a special decorative effect to this flower. The home-grown olive tree has a wide spreading crown with twisted branches and sometimes a trunk. The bark of this plant is outwardly similar to scales and, as it were, forms influxes. It is often black, sometimes with a brown tint. The special beauty and tenderness of the olive tree is like a flower growing in room conditions, acquires during the appearance of buds from May to June. Inflorescences are small (0.4-0.5 mm), yellowish-white, fragrant, collected 15-30 pieces in axillary racemes. The fruit is tied with self-pollination or a cross method. But with the second method of pollination, both the qualitative and quantitative indicators of the formation of flowers and fruits are improved.

If the olive tree is grown in a pot, then mature plant at proper care behind it can give up to 2 kg of berries.

The fruit is a drupe with black or purple oily flesh and a hard stone. The ripening period is from October to November.

The plant is slow growing, so it can live indoors for many years.

There are quite a few varieties of this garden culture, but for home growing one species is used as an indoor ornamental plant - the European olive (O. europaea).

What this olive tree looks like, look at the photo:

Since this plant comes from the subtropics, the olive tree needs light and sun. Therefore, your room olive will feel as comfortable as possible on the windowsills. south side or in last resort, west- or east-south orientation. If the indoor olive or olive tree grows and becomes large enough to keep it on the windowsill, then it is appropriate to place it on the floor near the window. Do not be afraid of the proximity of the greenery of the plant with heating appliances, it tolerates such a neighborhood well. You can also place a flowerpot on an insulated loggia, which faces south.

The plant is considered thermophilic, but in winter the olive is kept in a bright, cool room with a temperature of 10-12 ° C. If you want to see how your olive tree blooms, then the plant needs to provide exactly such cool conditions in winter time. But in the summer it will be quite comfortable for him Environment up to + 25 ° С, so the flowerpot with the olive can be taken out to the balcony or to the garden.

It does not require high humidity, it tolerates the drying of the earth well.

Prefers calcareous soils with lime content. The substrate for olives is prepared from soddy land, humus and sand (2: 1: 1).

How can an olive tree grow, look at the photo:

Rules for caring for an olive tree when grown indoors

As for any other houseplant, the olive tree has its own rules of care, which should be followed if you want to grow a beautiful and healthy tree. This is not to say that keeping this houseplant in an apartment is too difficult, but it has its own characteristics. To grow an olive or olive tree, you must adhere to the following rules:

Regular, but not too much.
Timely feeding.
Spraying in dry air.
Transplant as needed.

Since this plant is heat-loving, the olive tree, when grown at home, requires a sufficient amount of sun and moisture. In the summer, provide regular watering, but not abundant. In winter, they rarely moisten, but it is necessary to ensure that the soil lump does not dry out. Although the plant is not afraid of the drying of the soil, this should not be allowed. This indoor tree has a fairly large root, so when moistening an earthy coma, care should be taken to ensure that moisture flows to the very bottom of the flowerpot. Flower growers recommend this mode of watering: in summer 2-3 times a week, and in winter 1-2. But, choosing the time of watering, it is still better to focus on the dryness of the topsoil in the pot.

Whether a full-fledged care for an olive tree, which is grown in room conditions, can be understood by its foliage. With constant insufficient watering, it becomes lethargic and turns pale. If the tree does not have enough moisture and at the same time it grows in a dry environment, then this can cause the plant to begin to shed its leaves.

But under the conditions of irrigation for this indoor flower it should be remembered that excess moisture adversely affects the development of olives.

For a home olive tree, spraying is a must, but this should only be done on very hot days or if the flowerpot with the plant is near heating appliances. Moisturizing the crown should be carried out with settled water room temperature. Better do it early morning or in the evening. This will help protect the plant from burns. If the air in the growing area is not too dry, the olive tree does not require air humidification.

How to properly prune an olive tree to form a crown

If you want to know how to care for an olive tree, then carefully read one more point in its cultivation - top dressing. From April to September, 2-3 times a month, complete mineral or ready-made flower fertilizer is applied to the soil. This is the period of peak development of the plant, when it needs enough minerals for normal growth. Some flower growers recommend top dressing with such a scheme: in the spring - nitrogen-containing, and in the summer - mineral fertilizers.

This plant tolerates crown formation well. Therefore, many are trying to perform this procedure in such a way that it takes on a bizarre shape. If you know how to properly prune an olive tree yourself, you can not only form a crown, but also give a new impetus to the development of the plant.

All work is carried out with the help of a pruner in the spring, as soon as the olive tree began to wake up from sleep. When forming the crown, it is important to remove not only dead branches, but also shoots that compete with each other. At the same time, weaker ones should be removed, leaving strong and healthy ones.

If you know how to properly prune the crown of an olive tree, you can increase the yield by such actions. To do this, when cutting this plant, they try to remove old branches. Thus, it is possible to make room for the development of young shoots, which give the first fruits in the second year.

Some flower growers, when growing this plant at home, notice that sometimes there is nothing to cut in the spring. If you are faced with such a problem, then the lack of growth of new shoots indicates insufficient moisture in the plant. And if you notice that the foliage on the olive has begun to crumble, then most likely the flower does not have enough lighting. For an olive tree grown at home, the height is limited to 0.8 m.

When cutting this plant in the spring, don't be afraid to trim it too much. The olive tolerates shearing very well, and for growing season will give a good increase in new shoots.

Planting and transshipment of an olive tree flower

An olive grown at home can live over 10 years. If we take this indicator into account, then the owners of this plant develop logical question, and whether it is necessary to transplant and how often to do it. First, let's look at the intricacies of how to plant an olive tree for growing at home. First select suitable look and prepare a container. It must be large enough. If you do not grow a plant from a seed yourself, for example, but have already acquired enough mature tree, then the dimensions of the pot must be at least 60 cm in depth and width. Since the olive does not like an excess of moisture in the soil, additional wide holes should be made in the flowerpot for the free exit of excess water.

For planting a young olive tree, loamy or sandy soil is taken. As the plant grows, the old container may become small, so it is appropriate to transplant. At a young age, the olive is transplanted after a year. After 5 years - once every 2-3 years. To make it easier for the olive tree to survive all the work of changing the pot and soil, it is better to transplant it using the transshipment method. This helps to carry out all the work as painlessly as possible for the plant, without damaging it. root system. Also, when growing an indoor olive tree, transshipment helps to speed up its growth.

To carry out these works, prepare a larger pot than it was before, about 10 cm in diameter. Make in it big holes and fill the bottom with expanded clay or any other drainage material. Fill the pot up to 1/3 with a suitable potting mix. An earthen ball in an old flowerpot with a plant should be well moistened with water. As soon as the liquid is completely absorbed and the soil is moistened to the very bottom, carefully remove the tree along with the clod of earth and roots. Transfer it to a new pot, and fill the resulting voids with fresh earth.

Is it fashionable to grow an olive tree from a stone and how to do it at home

Read on to learn how to grow your own olive tree. Of course, on the market you can buy ready-made rooted cuttings or a one- or two-year-old olive tree and simply transplant them to a permanent habitat, providing full care. But for many it is very exciting to grow this plant yourself. Therefore, quite often questions arise whether it is possible to grow an olive tree, for example, from a stone and whether it will bear fruit.

This evergreen tree can be propagated by two methods: semi-lignified cuttings, and less often seeds (pits) are used for this. The first method manages to preserve all the specific features of the mother olive, but when planting seeds, the likelihood of their loss increases. Therefore, using this method of reproduction, it is necessary to bud the game.

How to grow an olive tree from a seed:

Soak the seeds for 16-18 hours in a 10% caustic soda solution.
Rinse them in running water.
Use secateurs to separate the “nose” from the bone.
Prepare a permeable soil (sheet with sand).
Plant 2-3 cm deep.
Moisten the soil.

If everything is done correctly, then shoots will appear no earlier than in 2-3 months. In the process of growing from seed, do not ignore the point with soaking the planting material. This procedure will significantly soften the shell of the seeds, which will increase their germination several times.

The bores are allowed to grow until about 2-3 branches appear and are transplanted into a larger pot. A young olive tree requires proper care during the growth period (moisturizing, maintaining temperature, sufficient light), which guarantees the normal active development of the root system and crown. A year after the transplant, you can vaccinate the wild with one of the available methods:

An example under the bark.
A sprouting eye in a clothespin.

It is worth noting that the tree grown from the olive pit is distinguished by a later period of flowering and fruiting. So, the first buds on such an olive tree can be seen no earlier than in 8-10 years.

Propagation of the olive tree by cuttings

If you are interested not only in the decorativeness of the plant, but also useful fruits olive tree, then for reproduction it is better to choose the method of cuttings. All work is carried out in the spring, when the flower has just begun its active growth. Cut branches are taken as planting material, the age of which should not be less than 2 years. In such cuttings, the diameter at the cut point reaches 4 cm. The incisions must be processed garden pitch. Prepared planting material planted in a horizontal position in a container with sand to a depth of 10 cm.

The cuttings have a lot of buds, so after about a month, young shoots appear on them. Such a young olive tree, grown at home, requires the following care:

1-2-time watering using a growth stimulator.
The temperature is about 25 °C.
Adequate lighting without direct sunlight.

Cuttings in the process of rooting and growth require high humidity air. Therefore, a pot with such young shoots should be covered with cellophane or glass. Once a day they need to be sprayed with water at room temperature. After 2-4 months, the cuttings can be transplanted to a permanent place. The next transshipment is not earlier than a year later in the spring. When grown in this way, the first fruits can be seen as early as 2-3 years.

Now you know how to grow a fruit-bearing olive tree at home. Be sure to follow the tips for growing and caring, and very soon your olive will delight you. beautiful flowers and fruits.

Flowering and fruiting period of the olive tree

When growing this plant, many want to see not only interesting decorative features but also its buds and fruits. The olive tree during the flowering period is very beautiful and fragrant. And you can see this on a 3-5 year old plant. In many ways, the fruiting time depends on the olive variety, so, in some varieties of this tree, the first flowering can be seen only after 10 years. Therefore, it is recommended to clarify this point before buying planting material.

You can speed up the fruiting process by creating for the plant favorable conditions cultivation as described above.

Treatment of the olive tree from diseases and pests

An olive tree at home, even with proper care, has a reduced threshold of sensitivity to diseases and pests. It is very important to identify the problem in a timely and correct manner and begin to deal with it.

This plant, when grown at home, is most often affected by such pests:

Whitefly.

Olive moth.

whitefly- this is a relative of the well-known aphid, which looks like a small white midge about 3 mm long. In the course of its life it leaves white coating on the greenery of the plant, it begins to fade, becomes covered with yellow spots, and its twisting is also possible. Olive when damaged by such a pest very quickly loses its decorative effect. In the photo you can see what an olive tree affected by a whitefly looks like:

The danger of being affected by this pest also lies in the fact that it is a carrier of various diseases (chlorosis, jaundice, etc.). To combat this pest, you should use chemicals ("Grinda", "Confidor Extra", "Bison", "Commander Maxi", etc.), which are processed at least 2 times with a frequency of 1 time in 2 weeks.

The main enemy of this plant is the olive moth. She settles on a flower, and her larvae eat buds, young foliage. When affected by this pest, the green of the olive tree changes outwardly, read the description of how the traces of damage by this moth look like. This will help to identify and start the fight against it in time. The foliage twists, if you unfold it, then inside you can see the pest sometimes in the web. To combat the olive moth, you should first remove all visible damaged elements. Further processing chemicals("Decis", "Aktara", "Fitoverm", etc.).

If you notice that the foliage on your tree has begun to wither, and the young shoots are developing poorly, and at the same time the plant is being cared for at the proper level, then most likely this is a signal of an olive disease. Most common fungal diseases affecting olive trees.

The most dangerous is verticillium wilt - fungal disease caused by a pathogenic microorganism of the genus Verticillium.

It is quite rare on olives that are grown at home, but it can still appear. It is not treatable, and the only way to quickly get rid of it is to notice the disease in time and remove all affected areas.

Growing an olive at home, provide it with the most favorable conditions. Then your tree will develop well and after a few years it will delight you with the first fragrant flowers and oily fruits.

Olive- is pertaining to olive family. Its homeland is Africa, Australia, southern parts of Europe and Asia. In the world, the olive tree is known for the fact that it is made from healthy oil, and the fruits - olives - pickle. There are many legends about its origin. Despite the fact that the olive grows only in warm countries, it can also be grown at home. It is possible to do this from a seed - a bone. However, this will not work to enjoy delicious fruits - they will be tasteless and will appear only 10 years after planting. in this way can be grown only with decorative purposes. For information on how to grow an olive tree at home, read our article.

planting material requirements

If you were already going to put in a bone from a canned olive just eaten, then we hasten to disappoint you - such planting material will not germinate. You will only need seeds of fresh fruit, which can be purchased at a specialized store.

When choosing a seed planting method, you should be aware that the germination process will be quite lengthy - about two and a half months. And the germination rate in this case is quite low - for example, out of five planted seeds, only two, or even one, can sprout. Usually germination is not more than 50%.

Did you know? The ancient Greeks revered the olive as the tree of life and longevity. It was considered as such because it was almost impossible to destroy it. Even shattered by lightning, it could live for a long time. If you need to uproot a tree, then for this you need to remove its roots within a radius of five meters, otherwise even from a small remnant it will grow again. In the wild, an olive grows on average for half a century.

Preparation: sprouting

To begin with, the bones should be placed in an alkaline solution (10%) for 18 hours. This is necessary in order to somewhat soften the shell, which in this state can already be pierced by hatched sprouts. After treatment, the seeds are washed and dried. They must be placed in the soil only in a completely dry form. The sharp end is cut with a knife, secateurs or filed before planting.

You can also place the seeds for several weeks in a bowl with wet for germination. The container must be kept at warm temperature, constant humidity and with sufficient supply sunlight. This procedure can help increase the percentage of germination.

The soil

The following composition will be the best for planting olives

river sand - two parts;
sod land - one part;
garden soil - one part.

In the soil for the olive tree, you will also need to add a little powder of dry slaked lime (20-25 g per 1 kg).

If you will use a purchased substrate, then you need to mix the growing soil (three parts) and ordinary soil (one part), slightly diluting the mixture with sand.

Capacity

Olive planting container must initially be large- at least 60 cm in depth and width. A prerequisite is drainage holes that will pass well excess moisture or take from the pallet required amount liquids. The main enemy of the evergreen tree is high humidity soil, death is like its stagnation.

At the bottom of the pot, as a layer, you need to lay a layer of small or brick chips.

Landing

Planting seeds in the prepared soil should not be too deep - at a distance of 2-3 cm.

For successful rooting and germination in the room, it is necessary to maintain the temperature at + 20 ° C. You also need to maintain high humidity, proper lighting.

The appearance of sprouts should be expected after two to three months.

Conditions and care of the seedling

The best place to grow olives is a window sill located in the south or southwest. That is where she will do enough sunlight. If there is not enough of it, the plant will signal this to you by dropping foliage. In this case, it will be necessary to look for a brighter place for the pot or additionally install a source of artificial lighting.

Caring for an olive tree at home is simple and no different from caring for the majority. It will consist of watering, spraying when the air is dry, pruning and transplanting.

Watering is needed regularly, as the topsoil dries up. The plant does not tolerate drought well - its foliage begins to dry out and fall off. However, the tree will react even worse to constant waterlogging - up to complete death.

Important! Watering the olive should be carried out only after a few days. tap water room temperature.

In the growing season (April to September) the tree needs to be fertilized. should be alternated with It is recommended to do this once every two weeks during the period of active growth and weekly in the spring-summer period. Starting from October, all top dressing should be stopped, otherwise it will be difficult for the plant to survive. winter period, and it will not bloom in the end.

In summer, it is necessary to periodically wipe the olive leaves from dust. In winter, during the period when the heating is turned on, they will need to be sprayed.

In winter, the olive should be left alone - water as little as possible, do not feed and move to a cool place (+ 10-12 ° C). Only under such conditions will it be able to bloom.

When flowering has occurred, the tree must be placed in a room with a temperature of + 18-20 degrees.

A year or two after planting, the plant should be transplanted. For this, the transshipment method is used (together with an earthen clod, without opening the root system). Carry out a transplant in the spring. The olive is transplanted annually until it reaches the age of five. Then the intervals between transplants should be increased to two to three years.

Important! Soil acidity is important for olives. She prefers an alkaline substrate and cannot tolerate too acidic soils. Thus, when transplanting, peat should not be introduced into the soil.

After transplanting, as a rule, the tree grows quickly. Two or three years later, in the spring or early summer, the olive tree in the pot sheds its leaves and acquires a new one.

Should be carried out annually sanitary pruning dry branches. You can also carry out a formative haircut - it is not difficult for the plant to recover from it. The olive tree is great for bonsai enthusiasts because it can form a variety of miniature trees from its crown.

The lower branches and leaves should be removed regularly - so the plant will grow better.

Since this evergreen tree is content with stiff foliage,

Olive or olive is an evergreen tree, reaching a height of 6-8 m. Upon reaching 1.5 m, its trunk begins to divide into thick, twisted branches, from which numerous shoots are formed. The bark of young individuals is light gray, smooth, while adults are dark gray, rough, with sagging. The crown is dense, wide, densely leafy.

Olive fruits, flowers and leaves and their photos

Olive leaves are dense, leathery, narrow, oval, lanceolate. Upper side sheet plate dark green, lower - gray. Its edges are slightly raised, which reduces the area of heated leaf by the sun's rays and helps the tree to endure long droughts. Evergreen leaves are replaced every 1-2 years. The growth bud located at the base of the leaf can be dormant for a long time. Comes into growth when pruning shoots and in case of severe damage to the leaves.

Olive flowers (photo above) are small, bisexual, white-cream, collected in inflorescences-brushes, consist of male and female parts, there are also male flowers with stamens. Flowering lasts from April to June. If several individuals are planted on the site, cross pollination contributing to increased productivity.

The fruits are elongated oval drupes of a dark purple, almost black shade, weighing about 15 g, with oily pulp of medium juiciness. Inside contains a large bone. Fruit ripening occurs in October-December.

Where does the olive plant grow?

This plant grows in the southeast of the Mediterranean, in a subtropical climate with warm winter and dry hot summers. Can withstand short frosts down to -10°C. It does not occur in the wild. Cultivated in Central Asia, Mexico, South America, Australia, Crimea, Transcaucasia.

Olive prefers loose, well-drained soils with low acidity. Loves bright lighting. Does not require high humidity and frequent watering, however, during a period of severe drought, leaves may fall off. In addition, if a tree lacks moisture or trace elements 1.5 months before flowering, its yield is significantly reduced, since fewer buds are formed. It will help to increase the yield in this case, cross-pollination.

In total, there are 60 species of this plant in the world, and only one of them (European olive) is of economic importance. In a year, one individual produces about 30 kg of fruit.

Olive fruits are a valuable food product. From them, an oil is obtained, rich in vitamins and trace elements necessary for human body. Olive oil used in cooking and cosmetics. The largest producers of this product are Spain, Greece, Tunisia, Italy, France.

Unripe green fruits are used in the canning industry, while black fruits are used to complement a variety of dishes, salads and snacks.

Yellowish-green, durable, heavy wood lends itself well to processing, so it is used in the manufacture of furniture and souvenirs.

Leaves, bark, fruits, flowers are used in traditional medicine for the preparation of medicinal infusions and decoctions. Leaves and flowers are harvested during the flowering period, after which they are dried in the sun or in a ventilated room. Fruit picking is carried out from September to December.

As you can see in the next photo, the olive is spectacular ornamental plant which can decorate the room and garden plot. Thanks to its powerful root system, it is planted to protect soil from erosion and landslides.

The history of this culture dates back to Ancient Egypt, where it began to grow more than 6000 years ago. The ancient Egyptians considered the olive a sacred tree sent to people by the goddess of justice, Isis. Olive leaf wreaths were worn by the rulers and winners of the Olympics.

The cultivation of the olive has long been started in Greece to produce oil. In the 16th century the tree was brought to America, then to Mexico and Peru. Gradually, it gained popularity in the Mediterranean countries. Today, the olive plant occupies millions of hectares.

In Russia, the tree appeared thanks to the Greek colonists who settled on the shores of the Black Sea in the 7th century. BC e. Since then, it has been grown in the Caucasus.

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