How can i grow an olive tree?

Question

i love the ones in my local garden center but cant afford £80 to buy one. also is it better to grow one in a pot or plant it in the garden, sunny/shady? i really know nothing! cheers x

Answer 1

Buy some olive with seed and then plant the seed in soil i  your garden and it will grow but take many months to grow and should take proper care and water the olive plant everyday.....

Answer 2

Get some olive oil from your kitchen and pour a little on to a grassy patch and in approximately 2 hours you will have a huge olive tree

Answer 3

They are slow growing and this partly accounts for their price. They are not the most attractive tree in the world but it will not be possible for you to grow one from a seed unless you are in a semi-tropical or tropical country. They grow fine in the ground and can survive in poor soil although they won't grow so much. They enjoy maximum sun and won't like being in the shade. They are resistant to frost down to about -10C but are unlikely to produce much fruit in cooler countries. They need little care, maybe a little pruning when they get bigger, just to keep a good shape.

Answer 4

£80??? Really??? I've got one that I bought last year from (believe it or not) Tesco for £15. I'd suggest shopping around a bit. It's doing really well, so they're not poor quality or anything....You could, of course, try growing one from seed using the pit from the olive, but I'd suggest you'd need a greenhouse for this at least to start with. If you want to try, I'd suggest planting a few into a seed tray filled with some good quality compost, putting it into a greenhouse or cold-frame (you can actually buy lightweight, cheap PVC mini-greenhouses that stand against a wall, but I don't know if they'd be warm enough...it might require a heated greenhouse to germinate)...then when (if) they do germinate, prick out (with a sharp stick like a skewer or similar...just poke them out of the compost) and pot on into individual pots for them to start to grow, once they're a couple of inches tall and have a couple of leaves on them....at this stage, discard the weakest seedlings, and just carry on with two or three plants - the strongest (this is why you need to plant a few to start with....some won't germinate at all, and some will be poor, but you should get a couple of decent ones if it's warm enough)...keep them watered to keep the compost MOIST (not tooooo wet) and cross your fingers! You'll need to keep trimmimg off the lower leaves as they grow, leaving the leaves at the top...this way you'll end up with a "trunk" and "branches"...otherwise you get a kind of manky bush! You can shape them a bit as they grow. Keep potting them on to bigger pots as they get bigger, to ensure that the roots have plenty of room. Oh, yeah...the actual compost should be a bit of a mix....something like two parts compost to one part sharp sand (from DIY/builders/maybe your garden centre) - Olive trees grow naturally in quite poor quality, sandy soil (in theit natural habitat), so you need to replicate this here for them to survive. For this reason, I'd recommend keeping them in pots even when they're fully established (big-ish pots, obviously!), as it's a lot easier to keep the soil perfect for them. If you do manage to get a couple to grow, perhaps you could sell the others for slightly less than 80-quid a time and make a profit!