How do Olives grow?

Also, I'd be curious to take a look to the tree we're talking about to see if we can figure out what makes it look unnatural. (If it really does)
 
First, olives are not large trees - even ones that are over 1000 years old. They tend to grow in harsh environments with inorganic soils and long periods without rain, and they are often the only trees in the area, so they don't have to out-compete other tree species for sun or water. Trunks tend to grow out (versus up) with veins of live growth covering a core of equally veined deadwood. Fine branching grows quickly, and even the oldest tree will bud back from the trunk, but the trunk itself does not grow as quickly. They are so hardy that you can take a stump out of a hedge, chop all branches to the base, turn it upside down, and new grow will sprout from the top where the roots had previously been.

From a styling perspective think "thick veined trunk, short, compact branching". The branches die back and new branches sprout so that the trees will have relatively fine branching even if the trunk is big and fat. They do not throw long branches like an elm or oak - their environment would not allow it.

Untitled-1.jpg

Tom Vuong (SoCal) styles a lot of big olives. Check out this video at 3:00. You can see on his upside down olives he has amazing taper - with no cut scars. Additionally, similar to Japanese maple, as you refine growth and increase ramification, leaf size will naturally reduce, because the tree spreads its energy across more leaves.

 
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I don't have any current pics of old olives growing on the edges of fields or in old abandoned plantings in California, but here are a couple landscape examples of the two basic shapes I most often see.

Multi trunk is most common. As Bonsai Nut and Juanmi said, they tend to sucker like crazy and spread outward. If they aren't minimally maintained (suckers removed at least once a year) they do tend to look like shrubs. These have been cleaned of suckers, but mostly left natural.
IMG_0228.jpgIMG_0227.jpg

Hourglass shape. Single trunk trees seem to develop a massive conical trunk and a multi-branch canopy. Here's one old tree, and a younger specimen beginning to develop the same look.

IMG_0221.jpgIMG_0234.jpg


As a teenager, I dug up a wild olive seedling out of the yard, stuck it in a pot in the shade, and literally forgot about it in my parents' yard for 25 years until I got into bonsai. It developed a mini version of the same burl trunk I see in bigger trees, with four spindly branches coming off of it. I began caring for it and encouraged more branches to grow from the burl. I'm currently working of ramifying it as a shohin.

IMG_7417.JPG


Olive3.jpg
 
Esolin said:
I don't have any current pics of old olives growing on the edges of fields or in old abandoned plantings in California, but here are a couple landscape examples of the two basic shapes I most often see.

Multi trunk is most common. As Bonsai Nut and Juanmi said, they tend to sucker like crazy and spread outward. If they aren't minimally maintained (suckers removed at least once a year) they do tend to look like shrubs. These have been cleaned of suckers, but mostly left natural.
View attachment 561134View attachment 561135

Hourglass shape. Single trunk trees seem to develop a massive conical trunk and a multi-branch canopy. Here's one old tree, and a younger specimen beginning to develop the same look.

View attachment 561136View attachment 561137


As a teenager, I dug up a wild olive seedling out of the yard, stuck it in a pot in the shade, and literally forgot about it in my parents' yard for 25 years until I got into bonsai. It developed a mini version of the same burl trunk I see in bigger trees, with four spindly branches coming off of it. I began caring for it and encouraged more branches to grow from the burl. I'm currently working of ramifying it as a shohin.

View attachment 561143


View attachment 561146
Click to expand...
One of those I have too!

1722801799910.png
 
leatherback said:
Thx. In the end I decided to continue on the original path, a traditional olive bonsai style..

View attachment 561160
Click to expand...
That's a beautiful tree!

If I may, the only thing that I find a bit unnatural is the branches growing down.

For what I have observed, olive trees have a tendency to grow strong branches going up, or at most, semi horizontal (even on old olive trees). The branches that can grow downwards on olive trees are usually thin, weak branches.

I hope this doesn't annoy you, I'm not trying to make you change your mind again. Again, you have a gorgeous tree there, just trying to figure out why you got that feedback.
 
Boon has some nice specimen bonsai on his group on Facebook.

I think it preposterous though... to lay claim it isn't how olive grow. Boon I know mentioned one was grown like a pompom. And trying to correct it. I've one crazy odd ball olive. The other one I'm wiring branches down and creating what I deem as normal branching on trees. We at the end of the day...are doing bonsai. I've not wired mine yet from today's pruning...but I did make a final decision with mine today. I pruned what needed pruned. I need to find time to toss wire on it. Set new growth and prune accordingly then.

My cascade Olive will be wired as I see fit for structure I've used on my cascade elm. This natural thought process...makes me pause. We tend to have a hand with such things with bonsai...why one would make a comment such as that.

From my talks with Adair...we wire them like we would want branch structure. Removing downward growth...and such. As he's familiar with Olive.

My olive today...as I came to a decision today with it.
 
Personally think we really don’t know how many intensively cultivated species of trees grow in the wild state anymore due to hundreds and sometimes thousands of years of work and cultural mores.

In PNW at least some old growth species are still around, albeit fairly rare.

Cheers
DSD sends
 
Cadillactaste said:
This natural thought process...makes me pause. We tend to have a hand with such things with bonsai...why one would make a comment such as that.
Click to expand...
I think it is however a fair comment. IF we take inspiration from Nature, we might as well keep in the back of our mind how the species would look as an aged, mature natually grown specimen, and take guide from that. I strive to -also- have tree where just from the branching and style people see immediatly which species it it. Yes, one can style an oak as a pine, but why would you?

So hence the question... How DO natural aged olives look. I have no clue! Gladly, from this thread I glace that may have dificulty finding great examples of unpruned centrury old olives in the wild.I feel les stupid for not being able to figure it out.
 
leatherback said:
I think it is however a fair comment. IF we take inspiration from Nature, we might as well keep in the back of our mind how the species would look as an aged, mature natually grown specimen, and take guide from that. I strive to -also- have tree where just from the branching and style people see immediatly which species it it. Yes, one can style an oak as a pine, but why would you?

So hence the question... How DO natural aged olives look. I have no clue! Gladly, from this thread I glace that may have dificulty finding great examples of unpruned centrury old olives in the wild.I feel les stupid for not being able to figure it out.
Click to expand...
Truly...I can't say I've seen amazing wild olive. Truth be told. I do have naturalistic trees on my bench. But...I think that there are no grand old olives shared...says a lot. Wouldn't you? That they aren't all that impressive. Or we could find them shared. That's where my gerbil lands.

I'm not into the decidious trained as pine. Personal preference... but, I've one olive very untraditional. My larger one has a chunk of wood...that can carry traditional styling and still stand out. That's my take. So that's the direction I'll go.

Best of luck to ya. I can't say...you will find many on your hunt. As I did research before adding the species. never found any amazing trees in the wild during that research.
 
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