Olive Planting in Your Garden Containers

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When olive planting, deciding which olive trees to buy is quite a task for there are over 900 varieties to choose from. People around the world though love olive trees and given this popularity many nurseries stock olive trees with experts on hand to provide advice.

However, some people are put off buying an olive tree for their plot of land as they feel they don't have room for it to grow. The good news is that olive planting can successfully be achieved within a pot or other types of containers, meaning you don't necessarily have to have a lot of outdoor space.

It is fair to say that not all varieties of olive tree are suitable for containers as some can grow to as high as 60 feet. There are some cultivars that are ideal for container gardening. For olive planting within a container, we would recommend the following varieties. Picholine, Arbequina, Frantoio and Manzanillo.

The latter two are particularly good varieties to grow in containers if you want to produce olive oil. The Arbequina is traditionally grown in Spain and produces a very tasty olive, whilst Picholine is a highly prized olive by connoisseurs.

Olive trees prefer a warm climate of course and will not really tolerate very cold winters with temperatures dropping several degrees below zero. The advantage of olive planting in containers is that you can move them in the winter so they cannot be damaged by a harsh frost.

Ideally your olive tree will have at least six hours of sunlight per day so make sure you position the container in a sunny position. However, if you have a large pot it would be helpful to leave it close to the house or greenhouse so that you won't have far to move it in the winter.

The olive tree you purchase at a nursery will probably not produce any fruit for at least two years. However, the great thing about these trees is they are beautiful to look at and can even be grown just as an ornamental tree.

Olive planting whether for a container or to plant in the ground, you will always have something very pleasant to look at while you wait for it to produce some fruit. In fact some varieties of olive tree are purely ornamental and will not produce fruit at all.

One such fruitless variety that seems to work well in containers is called Majestic Beauty, which is slow growing and can be contained to a size of less than eight feet. Another small variety that doesn't produce any fruit is Little Ollie. This is a good one to grow if you like to try your hand at topiary.

Olive planting in containers can be susceptible to scale, which is a pest that is easy to treat with insecticidal soap. The entire tree should be treated with one such product making sure that if the tree is indoors that an insecticidal soap approved for indoors is used.

It goes to show that anyone can grow an olive tree no matter how big their outdoor space is. If you choose to olive planting in a container, always seek advice from the nursery to ensure the plant you are buying is suitable.