Oliver repot and styling forward

[maroun.c]

Repoted thisnolive today out of nursery soil love the deadwood on the base but hate the top.

Not a great rootball but still better than what I feared

Cleaned up thick bottom.roots and straightened base

Pruned many branches to hopefully induce backbudding. Wonder if I should have removed more. Left 2-3 branches to rewire but unfortunately back branch split as I was moving it to see how stiff it is. Attached it with electrical tape making sure to compress hoping it'll recover but guess will take long gill i can wire



Here's final front shot please advise how to take this tree forward, complete chop or prune and hope for backbudding ?

Thanks

 

[Fidur]

While we wait for someone with more experience, I'm going to answer you. Take what I say with a grain of salt, as I am a beginner.
I would say it is a wild olive (olea europea, var sylvestris), though it is not important as they share lot of characteristics.
I would also say also that in your climate ( like in mine ) olives are almost indestructible. So I think you should not have problems prunning more branches. I did some works on mine 2 weeks ago, and it's back budding all over (yo can see it here: CLICK)
I like your tree (the nebari looks great). Good luck with it

 

[Michael P]

Nice base! I don't know enough about olives to give much advice, but I did break a branch on mine in the same way last year. I wrapped it in vinyl grafting tape, which is very similar to electrical tape but without the adhesive. It healed well, but I expect it to be structurally weak at that spot for a long time,

 

[badatusernames]

My understanding is that you will want to cut this back hard in later winter before buds form, and that that is the ideal time to cut olives in general, as it will cause an explosion of backbudding in spring.

If the runners at the base are not a part of the final design, I would probably cut them off now so that they aren't stealing energy. My understanding is that the risk in pruning anything now would be for losing the branch, so if you're taking the whole thing anyways, it should be fine. You might want to wait til you have something more than just "an understanding" though, but thought I'd give my two cents.

 

[maroun.c]

Thanks for the replies. Yes suckers were removed. My understanding is that if you reduce roots you need to reduce an equivalent amount of foliage which I also wanted to do to hopefully promote budding. Didnt want to over do it to avoid weakening the tree further. Guess it will wait a month after repot fertilize heavy before winter then at winter end prune heavier. I will be replacing the current branches with more compact one lsnyet one I split could have been used. Ill give it till next year then wire abd bend with caution if it doesn't make ill just have to grow a new branch.