While olive trees have been in Florida for some time as a
curiosity and for small scale production further north, renewed interest has
come about this tree as a landscape subject. Growing upwards to a
possible thirty-feet tall, olives can make a nice small to medium-sized
landscape tree for our area. As far as producing your own olives, I would
not get your hopes up, but as an attractive tree, it is worth a try.
We planted a small olive tree ('Arbequina') in our
Demonstration Garden a few years ago to see how it would do. It is now
over six-feet tall and has actually, to our surprise, set some fruit this
year! This was not expected as we had heard that this far south fruit is
not dependably set. This may still be the case as it has not matured as
yet and could still fall off. Otherwise, this small tree has beautiful
gray-green evergreen foliage with silvery surface on the underside of the
leaves. Although truly evergreen, the oldest leave swill shed as new
growth emerges in the spring. The bark color goes from gray-green to
tannish-gray as it matures. If olives develop flowers and fruit, a crop
is normally produced every other year. If fruit is produced, it starts
green and then turns blackish-purple when ripe. Please note that the
fruit has to be processed to become palatable as raw fruit is bitter and
inedible.
Pollination is another consideration as it can be complex,
climate-sensitive and many olive cultivars are not self-fertile. In our
area this may not be of much consequence. However, just for the record,
if you were to select suitable self-fertile cultivars, try 'Arbequina',
'Mission', or 'Manzanilla'. In suitable climates, fruit set may be increased by
planting more than one cultivar in close proximity.
Plant olives in full sun areas with very good drainage for
best results. Once established, olives are fairly drought-resistant and
can be long-lived. Please note that many people are allergic to olive
pollen so plant accordingly.
Again, like some newer plants, finding suitable olive trees
may be difficult in our area. I have seen as recently as last week some
in a local box store garden center. Otherwise, please check with local
family-run garden centers and regional specialized nurseries as well as
internet sources. While the one olive in our Demonstration Garden is
doing really well, it represents a trial of sorts as to how well these trees
will do in our area – so far, so good. As to olive production, I am not
holding my breath, but find that this attractive tree holds some promise as
landscape feature. For more information on all types of trees suitable
for our area, please call our Master Gardener volunteers on the Plant Lifeline
on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 1 to 4 pm at 764-4340 for gardening
help and insight into their role as an Extension volunteer. Don't forget
to visit our other County Plant Clinics in the area. Please check this
link for a complete list of site locations, dates and times - http://charlotte.ifas.ufl.edu/horticulture/Plant%20Clinics%20Schedule.pdf.
Resources:
Thetford, M., Gillet-Kaufman, J. L.& Mulvaney, M. J.
(2015) Olives for Your Florida Landscape. The University of Florida
Extension Service, IFAS
UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions (2015) Olives. The University of
Florida Extension Service, IFAS
Florida Trees For Urban and Suburban Sites (2015) The
University of Florida Extension Service, IFAS
Spray, V. ( 2010) Grow Olives in North Florida. The
University of Florida Extension Service, IFAS – Leon County
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