This week we look at keeping Olive Trees indoors. Some helpful tips and advice I hope will enable you to keep your indoor Olive tree happy and healthy.
The first thing to remember is that your Olive will be transitioning from life outdoors to life indoors. So, where possible if you can make this a gradual step that would be ideal. For example do you have an unheated porch, Orangery or outbuilding where you could store it for a couple of days before moving indoors? This step is not vital but it does help them adjust to the change in temperature.
Questions to ask yourself
How warm is the room that your tree is in? You do not want your Olive Tree to dry out.This will cause stress and you will get leaf drop. As your tree is inside it will be responding differently to an outdoor tree – these are dormant at the moment ( I’m writing this in November )but your indoor tree will be slightly driven by the warmer temperatures, so should be kept watered and moist. So do not forget to water.
Do you have underfloor heating or is there a radiator in the room with your tree?
Misting your tree with water almost daily will help particularly in winter when houses tend to have heating on which dries the air more than natural temperatures.
Keeping Olive Trees indoors.
Let there be light!
Trees only need light and moisture to thrive its finding the balance of the two in your ecosystem that suits your tree and giving the tree a helping hand to adjust. It will certainly find its way but the most common problem is always dehydration (both air and soil). Light and longer days will your improve your trees natural vigour.. this will kick in at the end of March.
Pruning and feeding your Olive tree.
For a tree to retain its vigour regular pruning is crucial, we recommend twice a year. Mid March and Mid October. Feeding is important too not only for the tree but for the soil that is feeding the tree. So replenish annually the top layer of soil with John innes no 3. Again,another tip on keeping your soil nice and nutritious is our slow release feed. Each time you water the tree it releases nutrients into your soil thus enabling the tree to absorb more nutrients. An indoor Olive kept in a pot needs feeding. You will know if your Olive is hungry as the leaves tend to go yellow at the tips.
I hope you’ve found this useful. My mantra is easy feed, water, prune. Follow these steps and your Olive will thrive indoors.
