RE: Re. Olive under story

If you choose your herbaceous under story from those plants that do not require much summer water, you will avoid having conflicting regimes for them and the olives.  There are numerous lists available for shade tolerant shrubs and herbaceous plants from which to choose a pleasing foliage and color palate.  If you keep in mind that the garden will change as the light availability changes, you will not be disappointed when shade lovers fail while the cover is thin, OR when the sun-lovers need to be replaced as the canopy thickens.  You have to think of the garden needs like your children’s: changing as it matures.  Then once it settles down at its maturity, your work becomes less and the relationship more stable!

 

Karrie Reid

 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-medit-plants@ucdavis.edu [mailto:owner-medit-plants@ucdavis.edu] On Behalf Of Ben Wiswall
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 7:11 PM
To: medit plants forum
Subject: Re. Olive understory

 

Hi Pamela, Fran, and David,

 

Thanks for your help!

 

Here in metro Los Angeles, olives are almost all ornamental, yet most are to my eye savagely pruned, both crown-reduced and thinned, as they might be in a commercial orchard. Sometimes they're even trimmed into topiary poodles.

 

Occasionally you will see a less fastidious homeowner leave them alone, and to me it makes a much more ornamental tree, a dense rounded crown of silvery green foliage.  This is the look I like.

 

My olives (allegedly fruitless, though last year's crop would come in handy in a famine), are spaced about 4-5 meters apart around an open space, so I look forward to an eventual enclosed canopy of interlaced trees.  Given the density of shade this will create, I'd guess from your responses that an under-story of low herbaceous plants would work better than shrubs that might stretch to find the light.  I probably will have to irrigate more often to sustain the low ground-covers as well.

 

Thanks again, any more advice is always welcome!

 

-Ben A-W

 

PS  Fran, your home town has a delightful name!

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