pruning olive trees in Italian gardens

Italian garden design should strive to reflect and pick up on the nuances and symbolic features of the Italian countryside. There can be no tree on the garden designers plant list than the majestic olive tree and it's presence truly gracesthe typical Italian garden with it's metallic-silver foliage, characteristic spherical-form and of course- olive oil. However, in order to maintain these fine qualities the olive tree requires some special annual maintenance routines.

Since early Etruscan times the olive tree has been pruned and tended to like no other tree, as it was considered an almost sacred entity to the early Etruscans. An olive tree will soon grow too tall, become straggly, stop producing healthy olives and eventually die without regular human maintenance. This signifies that both the olive tree and man have depended upon each other for their survival for many centuries.

The maintenance of the olive tree is based around the fact that the olive tree is a tree that has the ability to survive for many centuries but relies upon regenerative annual pruning in order to do this. Firstly, the middle of the tree canopy should be pruned of small branches shooting from the main trunk annually to allow for the free movement of air, this assists in the prevention of fungus, which can afflict both the leaves and the fruit. The same goes for the tree canopy and any crossing stems should be removed, again to allow for the free circulation of air.

Olive trees tend to produce many suckers from the base of the trunk, especially if the tree is old or damaged and these should be removed annually to concentrate the growth energy in the canopy above. The olive's canopy should be maintained to approximately 4m wide by 4m tall and it should be maintained compact within a roughly spherical form. Any strong, vertical growth should be kept in check in order to maintain the shape of the canopy and also to concentrate the growth energy within the canopy.

Professional pruning of the olive tree is very complex and there are many varieties of olive tree to be considered, however, in general terms the canopy should be thinned, annually in March by removing a chosen branch directly underneath another healthy branch as this healthy branch will then mature, droop and eventually replace the old branch that has been removed. This kind of annual pruning creates a cycle of continually maturing stems which are then removed annually and are then soon replaced with healthy new stems, which in turn mature after a year and begin producing olives. This simple pruning method will improve the shape of the olive trees canopy, enhance the overall visual appearance and it will enable the olive tree to withstand diseases and avoid fungal attack for many years.

RENOVATING AN OLD OLIVE TREE

An olive that has not been pruned regularly will soon lose its compact form, grow very tall and stop producing quality olives and when an olive tree gets to this stage there is little left to do but perform a drastic, renovating prune. This involves reducing the canopy to around 1.50 to 2m in early March cutting into the larger, thicker stems to promote young, vigorous new growth from the area of the pruning cut, even from large, old stems. Although this may seem like a drastic step to take the olive tree will soon throw up masses of healthy new branches that can then be pruned again the following year to establish a large, healthy and open canopy that will provide healthy olives again in just a few years.

Given that the relationship between man and this special Mediterranean tree is so ancient and so complex this kind of annual maintenance is the least we can do!

CONTACT ECOLOGICA FOR ECOLOGICAL ITALIAN GARDEN DESIGN