[IBC] Keeping leaves small on olive

Andrew G

Hi everyone.
A couple of months ago, start of winter here, I bought a "bonsai starter"
Olive tree.
It's only about 2-3 inches tall, basically these are about 1-2yr old woody
seedlings, that have yet to be grown up, but have been trained to get
thicker trunks, esp bases.
Anyway Now it's almost the end of winter, and I have noticed that the leaves
are starting to get larger, some of them have doubled in size.
So my question/s is:
1) Would this plant have been defoliated (recommended early summer here) and
the leaves I saw when I bought it the new growth since?
2) Was there another method they used to keep the leaves small? No one
around here seems to know much about olives here
It's not too much of a concern right now as the tree will be trained for a
few years yet, but just being curious.

Cheers everyone
Andrew.

Forster
Mid North Coast
New South Wales,
Australia

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Carl Rosner

Andrew G <notchevy327@HN.OZEMAIL.COM.AU> wrote:Hi everyone.
A couple of months ago, start of winter here, I bought a "bonsai starter"
Olive tree.
It's only about 2-3 inches tall, basically these are about 1-2yr old woody
seedlings, that have yet to be grown up, but have been trained to get
thicker trunks, esp bases.

Andrew, you didn't mention what type of Olive you purchased.

Anyway Now it's almost the end of winter, and I have noticed that the leaves
are starting to get larger, some of them have doubled in size.
So my question/s is:
1) Would this plant have been defoliated (recommended early summer here) and
the leaves I saw when I bought it the new growth since?

Defoliation is not usually performed on such a small seedling.

2) Was there another method they used to keep the leaves small? No one
around here seems to know much about olives here
It's not too much of a concern right now as the tree will be trained for a
few years yet, but just being curious.

My guess is that you are not giving the tree enough light. You didn't say where you are keeping the Olive. The tree (in my opinion) is growing larger leaves to compensate for the lack of light.... :0)

Carl L. Rosner


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