Dead olive trunks

maroun.c

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Got a few dead olive trunks which I power washed today and will let dry and paint with some water protection varnish.... original plan was to display those in shaded areas of the garden where I'm not able to keep any plant. Yet toying with the idea of few small pots hidden in the holes of the trunk and making a composition or maybe isolating few holes with some lining and drainage holes and planting few small olives to make a composition as ones on vertical stones.... maybe planting a few olive whips in soil and passing through drilled holes ?
Has anyone done something like that ? Any tips or tricks ?Screenshot_20210905-184247_Gallery.jpg
 

Shibui

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Have not done this with olive but Junipers are frequently used to make 'phoenix graft' or 'Tanuki' trees using a dead wood base and younger trees attached. Usually the trunk of the live plant is embedded into a groove in the dead wood so as it ggrows iit appears to be a single live vein of wood on a larger dead trunk.
Search 'phoenix graft' or 'tanuki' for lots of online inspiration.

I would avoid threading live sections through holes. A live branch growing from a dead section with no obvious connection to roots will not look natural and as the branch thickens inside the hole circulation will eventually be cut and it will almost certainly die.
Another option is to us the stump as a 'rocky mountain' and plant smaller trees in pockets of soil so they appear to be trees growing on a steep cliff.
Don't underestimate the care needed to maintain such a planting. Watering becomes critical as not only does the tree use water and evaporation takes some but the porous wood will also soak even more water away from the root pockets and evaporate it even faster into the surrounding air. Rock plantings have similar problems and require much more water than similar trees in pots to keep the trees alive.

Search for inspiration for rock plantings but ignore the more common root over rock entries. Here's one from Bonsai Empire: https://www.bonsaiempire.com/basics/styling/rock-planting
 

maroun.c

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Sprayed with protective paint and placed in garden.
Will play with few small olives that I might plant in the soil and grow branches to look as if they're going out from the dead trunks. Also considering adding a few soil spots in the holes of the 2 large trunks and planting few small olives in them and styling out as they grow.
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