Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi there - has anyone tried to grow an olive tree (I know it'd take forever) from a stone after eating the olive? It was a friend's 50th the other day and there were olives on the buffet. My OH ate a couple and had the idea of trying to grow a plant from the stones to present to my friend next year. Any idea how best to go about this??

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Life may not be the party we hoped for but since we're here we might as well dance

apparently olive stones have a low germination rate, so you might be pretty lucky to get one to grow. also, it depends on the type of olive you ate! i've heard that if they were stored in brine, then that will have killed the stone. however, if you save the stones from olives which have just been kept in oil, they may still be viable.

i tried to germinate some olive seeds bought from a seed company, but no success yet. i did a bit of research and found varying ways of trying to get them to grow. everything from just putting them in some soil on a sunny windowsill, to keeping them cold in the fridge for a few months before planting. as i said, nothing has worked yet, unfortunately...

from: Mania Turksh - Olive Propogation
"None of the cultivated varieties (of olive) can be propagated by seed. Seed propagated trees revert to the original small-fruited wild variety.

A commonly practiced method is propagation from cuttings. ...Cutting grown trees bear fruit in about four years."

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

moggssue

If you want a couple of cuttings let me know and I will send you some off my tree Although it may take over 100 years to get to the size of mine..

Cheers Chris

That would only matter if you were trying to grow a tree to get olives from. If you just want to grow the seed then it doesn't matter. Don't know whether you'd get one to germinate though, can you do 'scarification' on the pip?

"Scarification :- The germination of some seeds is greatly improved by rubbing the seeds lightly between two sheets of sandpaper or soaking in water to break down the hard coating which prevents the seed from imbibing moisture."

"Olea europaea -
Stratification: ND. Cracking shell may help"
ND = Not dormant, sow in spring

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

Thanks for some very helpful replies folks - the reason for wanting to try to grow the olives was as a keepsake from my friends 50th birthday so I guess it wouldnt matter if it never 'fruited' so long as we could get it to grow ... I'll try that scarifying thingy and keep my fingers crossed!

Chrichmond, many thanks for your great offer, just how slowly would a cutting grow??! I've been looking at buying a tree from the GC but they're a bit expensive for me.

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Life may not be the party we hoped for but since we're here we might as well dance

unfortunately olive is a very slow growing tree, most garden centres usually have them starting at around £20 upwards, I got mine from a specialist garden centre but it cost nearly £400 including delivery.

Cheers chris

I recently bought a small olive tree (virtually just a cutting!) for around £6.

I bought it at a local centre and IIRC it came from here.

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Veni, Vidi, Velcro.
I came, I saw, I stuck around.

I dont mind getting only a small one (all I can afford!) but will it take years an years an years to grow up??!

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Life may not be the party we hoped for but since we're here we might as well dance

Lidl had some this year (£2.99), in their 'mediterranean bushes' selection (along with fig, lemon & orange). Not much help this year. Try ebay I bought a big one off there, but watch the delivery costs...

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

When I looked up what to do with olives when my tree had produced some fruit, they have to be processed to get rid of the bitterness. Some methods involved sodium hyroxide, a pretty powerful alkaline.I don't know for sure, but it would seem possible that this could kill the seed.

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