Bringing a piece of Italy to Ireland…

This week we are talking about all things Olive, these Mediterranean trees are becoming one of the biggest sellers on the Nursery. They have always been a firm favourite for smaller gardens or in pots to add different foliage to the garden and adding that holiday feel, I have two in my own garden and I just love them. However, in the last six months, we are selling just as many Olive trees for inside as we are for outside and we are often asked about the care of these trees.

Olive trees for outdoors first, anyone who has an Olive in the garden will know how reasonably easy they are to keep, they need a good amount of water although they don’t like to be sitting in water or waterlogged ground. They need an occasional feed, usually I’d feed mine twice a year with something really simple like a tomato or seaweed feed, once in March and again in August. I tend to keep mine outside all Winter and only protect it if we are going to get a really cold snap then I bring them closer to the house for cover, for the one that I can do that with, one is much too big with a very large terracotta pot so it’s not possible to move it so I have just left them and only once did it lose its foliage and I thought I might have lost it, but it came back in the Spring into leaf and had all its foliage back looking amazing by the Summer, which was a huge relief.

Picture of our Garden Olives

For inside they can be a little trickier which is more to do with the heat and light in the house but especially as so many houses have underfloor heating these days so I would always advise my customers to get a pot that is big enough, usually we would say a pot that is at least twice the size of the pot that the olive comes in when you buy it from us. Olives need the room to put down their roots but also a smaller pot makes watering even trickier. It really is a case of trial and error to find the right amount of water for your house, try three times a week and just keep checking the soil to make sure it’s not dry but neither too wet, use the same feed at the same time and ensure that your tree has enough light, not in really strong direct sunlight. When you have the perfect spot and you’ve found just the right water regime for your tree, it’s all sailing from there.

The sizes of the Olive trees will depend on the room you have, I have a beauty of an old rugged one with a huge wide but low trunk with a large head of foliage which I just love, and inside, I have a much smaller sized 8-10cm girth in my hallway in a lovely pot which is happy. We have a huge selection of Olive trees in stock and can advise you on which one for your space.

Why not have a look at what olives we have in stock on the Nursery?