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Fertilizing a transplanted olive

19 years ago

Last fall I transplanted a 20' tall olive. Trunk is a good 8 inches in diameter. The root ball was 3' by 4' by 30 inches deep. Before digging it up I removed about a third of the foilage. It seems to have survived the trama even though I inadvertantly scraped off a couple patches of bark. I mixed in a goodly amount of compost in the planting hole. Now, six months later, all seems well but I'm wondering if I should fertilizer. I'm not seeing any new growth. I would have to use a liquid fertilizer as I have a cloth/bark mulch around it to keep out weeds. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks for your help.

Waterouzel

Comments (3)

  • 19 years ago

    NEVER.. EVER FERTILIZE A TREE ... unless a soil test indicates something is lacking in your soil ....

    i dont know what its status should be in zone 8 as of today .... but buds should at least be swelling .... and if you have a plethora of buds... break one on the interior off and see if it is green and alive or black and dead inside ...

    if it is alive.. you are responsible for all water this summer.. letting it dry in between waterings ...

    if you had asked prior .. we would have probably told you how hard it is to move a 20 footer ... physically ..but even worse on that big a tree ... i hope it makes it after all the love you put into it ...

    do NOTHING to the wounds.. the tree will heal itself ...

    i would not have amended the planting hole.. but since you did .. you have added more than enough to the soil .. no need to think of it needing any other food ..

    i hope it makes it.. ken

  • 19 years ago

    And unless you really have good reasons for the landscape cloth under the mulch, I would remove it. It doesn't really stop roots and weeds from growing, usually into it, which makes it almost impossible to remove in a few years when you decide you want to. It also stops anything other than water getting to the soil below, and since one of the reasons I put down mulch is so it can break down and add to and improve the soil below it, to me, it defeats one of the purposes of mulching.

    I trust you have no mulch in the 2-4" of space next to the trunk, have mulched out to the drip line or beyond, and have piled the mulch no more than 4" deep? If not, correct that, as other practices end up not being good for the tree.

    As Ken said, don't do anything else except water. Most trees, especially large ones, take up to a year to recover from beiong moved, and can take over 2 years. You may not see any growth this year, as the tree re-grows its roots to balance the leaves it has. Despite the foliage you removed, the tree probably had more leaves than roots right after you moved it.

  • 19 years ago

    Thanks for the advice. I'll only water this year. Good point about the landscape cloth. I'll probably remove it after this growing season when I add some real much. Presently I only have a thin layer of bark for looks.

    It actually was very easy to dig up and move. I used a 10 ton excavator and had it out of the ground in less than an hour and that included pulling a chain underneath the root ball to cut any deeper roots. I don't think there were many. Three days before the dig, I hydrated the tree thoroughly and the root ball stayed together very nicely. I was prepared to wrap it in burlap and wire but didn't need to. I was inspired to try this by seeing much larger ones transported on flat bed trailers down I-5 here in California in the middle of summer!
    Again, thanks for the help.
    Waterouzel