Fruitless Olive Tree Losing Leaves
Although the olive is tough and hardy you must prepare a large planting pit and perhaps screenings for drainage.
Fruitless olive tree losing leaves. It is either a single or multiple trunk has narrow gray green foliage with a light silvery green on the undersides of the leaves. Olive trees need full sun and a fertile well draining soil. If the tree gets too dry it should recover when watering resumes. Leaves that drop are most often yellow with no discernible disease spots.
It was olive oil that was burned as the eternal flame in the first olympic games. Scientist have dated some fruit bearing olive trees throughout the mediterranean region to be 1600 to 3000 years old. Several fungal diseases can affect fruitless olive trees. The peacock spot disease thrives in humid cold conditions and causes lesions to form on upper leaf surfaces.
The rise in the use of olive trees in the home landscape spurred the introduction of smaller stature fruitless olives like majestic. Severe virticillium wilt kills entire trees. The fruitless olive is a distinctive evergreen that grows at a slow to medium rate to twenty five to thirty feet tall and wide and has an airy appearance. Before you transplant the olive tree identify the cause of the falling leaves.
Because they are fruit bearing and evergreen olive trees need plenty of water. If misdiagnosed as lack of water it will most certainly die. Several fungal diseases commonly attack olive trees. However at times we can have green leaves drop that appear perfectly healthy.
But if the tree gets too dry which often happens in the winter when watering is less frequent the leaves will dry out and drop. Virticillium wilt causes wilted branches thin canopies and leaf dieback. If falling yellowed leaves are the only symptom the cause is likely a leaf spot disease such as peacock spot. Department of agriculture plant hardiness zones 9 through 11 blooming in the summer with the white blossoms followed.
Good air circulation and plenty of sunshine will help prevent these diseases. Olives that are over watered primary injury begin to have yellowing leaves that fall. This fruitless variety does not produce fruit eliminating any messy fruit drop maintenance and possible allergic reactions to pollen produced by the flowers. Heat and drought stress will cause the tree to lose leaves that it cannot support with the available soil moisture.