Last weekend I went for a walk and found an extremely rare thing - a dead olive tree. It is very hard to kill a mature olive tree - although babies in their forst two or three years are somewhat simpler. Cutting it down usually results in sprouts from the stumps and the only reliable ways seem to be a few weeks of frost or an attempt at moving it which cuts up too many roots (and given the huge numbers of large olive trees in small post around the place this is not a simple or reliable method). It is possible that something will sprout up from the roots but the fact that all the branches on all the trunks seem equally dead makes me think that this one is now an ex-olive tree that won't be revived by the application of quantities of water and fertilizer. As always click on the image to see it enlarged and do look at the rest of the series if you've missed them.
Blog Home : August 2006 : Permalink
