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Fig trees and Olive trees – advice please
Latest post from MARKSVEGPLOT – a blog about food and gardening in England”
I have a “Brown Turkey” Fig tree. It came from one of those ”Free – pay only postage” offers in a magazine about three years ago. When I got it, it was about 30cm tall, but it has now grown to about 1.5 metres. The trouble is, it has not put out any side-branches and it is just a tall whippy pole-shaped thing! It was hard to photograph because it is so tall and slender: it’s the one in the brown pot in the middle of the patio…
Each year the stem / trunk / leader has grown a little bit more, extending the height further each time. Here it is now, showing signs of life already.
Little buds like this are forming too, but I think they will probably be leaf-buds again, not branches.
What should I do? Should I cut the leader shoot? Will that make the tree produce some side-branches? If you know about these things, please let me know.
I have read that you should constrain the roots of a Fig tree, otherwise it will just grow big and not produce any fruit. Mine is currently in a 12″ pot and I am thinking of re-potting it into something bigger – maybe about twice the size. Does that sound sensible or not?
Still on the subject of trees – I also have an Olive tree (also from a magazine offer, but much older).
Unlike the Fig, this one has loads of branches, although the tree is basically V-shaped.
Maybe January is not the best time to judge these things, but I think my tree has fewer leaves than I would like. It always seems to look fairly sparse. Is that normal for an Olive? I usually feed the tree with whatever general-purpose plant food I use for all my pots. Is that right, do you think? Or should I be using something different? Also, what do you think of the size of the pot it is currently in? Should the tree be in a bigger pot?
If you have any experience with trees like these, I’d really appreciate it if you could give me the benefit of your advice, in a comment. Thanks!
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Source: http://marksvegplot.blogspot.com/2016/01/fig-trees-and-olive-trees-advice-please.html
