Wild Olive - Autumn Cuttings Experiment

[stav121]

So - on the 1st of September I cut part of a shoot out of a root sucker from a street olive that I came across. I believe that those are grafted trees and the root stock is usually wild olive (Olea Sylvestris), so I though why not experiment with Autumn Olive cuttings. I just cut them into small pieces, dip one end in a very generic organic rooting hormone (the only one I could find nearby at that time), put 6 small cuttings in individual pots with mix of 30% Zeolite, 30% Pumice, 20% Lava rock, 20% Sphagnum Moss, put them all in individual transparent bags and under a small indoor grow lamp that I have (from a Click & Grow 3 which stays on for 16 hours a day).

On 14th of September (14 days later) I pulled them all out to see if any roots had developed and to my surprise, all of them had at least one root emerging on come out already.

Here are the two that have even started to actively push more growth over the past two weeks.




Since it is starting to get a bit colder here day by day, I thought I might try to overwinter them inside for a while just to be sure they have taken for good.

Seems like a fun little project until Spring comes again.

 

[akillas]

Ive found wild olive to be indestructible.. you could throw one down the street and a year later it will be budding.

You wont see a properly thick trunk in our lifetime though, it thickens very slowly. For this reason, i (legally) only collect thick wild olive trunks and they are one of my fav species.

Also, nice pots!

 

[stav121]

Ive found wild olive to be indestructible.. you could throw one down the street and a year later it will be budding.

You wont see a properly thick trunk in our lifetime though, it thickens very slowly. For this reason, i (legally) only collect thick wild olive trunks and they are one of my fav species.

Also, nice pots!

Well, I find olives the best tree to fiddle around when your fingers are itchy. You can do whatever you want whenever you want and they will take it like nothing happened!

Thanks on the pots - I have made them myself, kinda got into some pottery during the summer heatwave and I made around 10 various size pots just to pass the time. Great side project for when there is no bonsai work to be done.