Quote:
Originally Posted by Sacha[_4_]
These are not fast growing trees, quite the opposite, in fact. As we
know they can live for hundreds of years and so tend not to be
fast-growing plants. Putting plants into larger pots is not always a
good idea. Only the root growth and the type of plant can tell you
that. Why did you re-pot your plant? Was the original pot full of
root? With something like an olive, which grows naturally in dry,
stony and barren soil, a large pot full of wet compost could be a death
knell. The bigger the pot, the higher the volume of wet compost round
the roots of a plant adapted to grow in poor, dry, hot conditions. Yet
again
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I think you can over-emphasise the dry bit. We've just returned from southern Portugal, and it is very evident that that the olives are grown in the valley bottoms, where there is a source of water. Where the soil is drier on the valley sides, the preferred planting is carob, possibly fig (which has very long roots to seek out water), and cork oak. Where we go in Greece, too, there's a very clear colour difference in the landscape, with the greyer foliage of the olives confined to the valley bottoms.
In this context, I agree, it's not a good idea to overpot a plant used to sharp drainage, and not used to sitting in sogginess, but I wouldn't like people to come away with the idea that olives are like cacti in their water requirements!
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