Olive trees are tougher than I thought!

My potted olive tree has survived the winter with no apparent problems at all, despite being more or less submerged in snow for a while. In fact, it seems to have coped rather better than some plants I've always thought of as very hardy. Have others had the same experience?

 

No I'm not at all surprised ClaraLou.
I have two potted ones and one in the ground.
We get thick snow for at least a week every winter and temperatures drop to -10/-15.
They survive well in the extremes of temperature here. (France)

 

Merci, Naylors Ark! I suppose it must just be that I associate olive trees with summer Mediterranean holidays!

In which region of France do you live? My father-in-law used to have a house in Haute-Vienne in the Limousin and I think the winters can be pretty tough there.

 

Some of the olive trees grown in Greece are hundred of years old - they must have taken some cold winters in their time and still survive.

I went on holiday to Crete a while back and on one of the tours we did, the coach guide whittered on and on about the olive trees the whole way there and back - even on the coach going back to the airport at the end of the holiday! Either she came from farming stock or was just incredibly proud of Cretan olives!

 

We live in Indre on the border between the limousin and centre, so just above the Haute-Vienne and to the northeast.
The weather will be similar.
It's funny how we think of certain plants as being only grown in one part of the world.
When you think of it an awful lot of plants in the u.k originate from abroad.

 

I must admit a few years ago at thinking olives were tender, it was one of those hearsay statements that must have been copied from one gardening author to the next.
They mostly copy one another anyway.

I was always therefore wary about spending money on a good sized plant only to lose it, then a few years back smaller plants became available and I gave it a try.

Mines planted out in the garden and not in a particularly good position, but it came through a couple of minus 12s last year and also this last winter which has been longer and possibly wetter.

 

I had two olive trees, and neither survived. Maybe it was just a much worse winter here, but they cost a fortune. :(

 

Aaron (sussexgardener) Crete is not so tourist orientated as most Greek islands, I think something like 2/3rds of their income comes from olive oil ,

 

It's funny, Naylors Ark, but I'm only aware of olive trees becoming popular in the UK in the last few years. I wonder why? As you say, we have borrowed an awful lot of other things from elsewhere. Maybe it's just that we don't have a long and sunny enough summer season to get a good crop of olives so they've never been grown as crop plants. Now we grow them purely as ornamentals, hoping to add a touch of the Mediterranean to rainy British gardens!

Sorry about your trees, Gardener56. Where do you live?

 

gardener56, Is it likely that they were in too much water? Olive trees don't like standing in water. I would suspect that, rather than suffering from cold.

 

Hi,

They were in a raised area in my exotic garden. The soil was mixed with a lot of grit, and it seems to be free draining, so I don't know... :(

 

LOL, I've just 'retested' them. One seems to be dead, but the other one seemed to have some hope. Some branches were dead but after scraping the bark on one branch I have found green.

 

gardener56, were they trained standards, or something similar.

I only ask as I guess most of these are grown in warmer climes and imported to the UK, where us unsuspecting gardeners buy them and plant them out.

They have been grown very softly and not acclimatised to our cold wet winters.

 

That sounds promising.
Last year one of my potted ones looked very poorly after the winter.
I think it was a late frost that we had. (After a couple of weeks of snow)
Thankfully it's fine now.

 

Now both trees have tiny shoots growing from the bottom! Yes, olive trees are incredibly tough!!!