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Olive a Dream Trees
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Olive Tree

About Olives

Majestic Olives (Olea Europaea)
Willow like soft gray green foliage complements all colors. Smooth gray trunks and knarled / picturesque with age.
Goes with many landscape styles. Small tree (25-30 feet high and as wide) with slow to moderate growth habit. When laced out yearly, becomes a dramatic focal point to enhance any yard.

Olive trees are 'natives' of the Mediterranean countries and therefore they should be treated as such even when introduced into far off lands such as  the US. They're similar in their cultural needs to trees such as eucalyptus. In light of this, regular or large applications of chemical fertilizers will do more harm than good. Controlled chemical fertilizing can produce good crops, however it must be carefully monitored to ensure no damage is done.

Olive trees are among the oldest known cultivated trees in the world. The botanical progenitor of the olive tree is not accurately known, but it is thought to be the Oleaster Olea Sylvestris which is still grown wild in North Africa, Portugal, Southern France, Italy and by the Black and Caspian Seas. The Olive was a native to Asia Minor and spread from Iran, Syria and Palestine to the rest of the Mediterranean basin 6,000 years ago.  It is among the oldest known cultivated trees in the world - being grown before the written language was invented.   It was being grown on Crete by 3,000 BC and may have been the source of the wealth of the Minoan kingdom.  The Phoenicians spread the olive to the Mediterranean shores of Africa and Southern Europe. Olives have been found in Egyptian tombs from 2000 years BC.  The olive culture was spread to the early Greeks then Romans.  As the Romans extended their domain they brought the olive with them.
1400 years ago the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, advised his followers to apply olive oil to their bodies, and himself used oil on his head. The use of oil is found in many religions and cultures. It has been used during special ceremonies and also as a general health measure. During baptism in the Christian church, holy oil, which is often olive oil, may be used for anointment. At the Chrism mass olive oil blessed by the bishop, "chrism", is used in the ceremony.  Like the grape, the Christian missionaries brought the olive tree with them to California for food but also for ceremonial use. Olive oil was used to anoint the early kings of the Greeks and Jews. The Greeks anointed winning athletes. Olive oil has also been used to anoint the dead in many cultures.
The olive trees on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem are reputed to be over 2000 years old, still relative newcomers considering the long domestication of the olive.  We don't know the exact variety of the trees on the Mount. The olive tree has been manipulated by man for so many thousands of years that it is unclear which varieties came from which other varieties. Varieties in one country have been found to be identical to differently named varieties in another. Some research is now being done using gene mapping techniques to figure out the olive family tree. Shrub-like "feral" olives still exist in the middle East which represent the original stock from which all other olives are descended.
 In the past several hundred years the olive has spread to North and South America, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

The Olive In California:
As the Franciscans marched north establishing missions in California, they also planted olive groves. Southern California saw the first olive trees. According to an account in Judith Taylor's book, The Olive in California, a visitor to Mission San Fernando in 1842 saw the mission buildings in ruins but the orchard with a good crop of olives. The visitor remarked that the mission probably had the biggest olive trees in the state. Subsequently in the past 150 years, trees have been planted in several waves along with interest in olives and olive oil. Many of these older groves (80-150 yrs old) still exist in California. Most are in Northern California. In Southern California population and housing pressure have put the farmers out of business. There are many isolated trees or fragments of old groves but the land is too expensive for olive growing. Income per acre is 10 times lower than other crops like wine grapes and even that can't compete with development potential.
Ahens is named for the Goddess Athena who brought the olive to the Greeks as a gift.   Zeus had promised to give Attica to the god or goddess who made the most useful invention.  Athena's gift of the olive, useful for light, heat, food, medicine and perfume was picked as a more peaceful invention than Poseidon's horse - touted as a rapid and powerful instrument of war.  Athena planted the original olive tree on a rocky hill which we know today as the Acropolis.  The olive tree which grows there today is said to have come from the roots of the original tree. 

Olive Tree

Rooted in Spirit

The olive tree is a timeless symbol of peace, perseverance and strength. This ancient emblem of abundance and glory has been celebrated for thousands of years as a source of nourishment from its fruit, prosperity from its harvest and beauty from its silvery evergreen leaves.
Of the many plants mentioned in the Torah and the Bible, the olive tree is by far the most sacred and recognized. In America, the significance of the olive tree is illustrated in the Presidential Seal, where an olive branch is seen grasped in one of the eagle's talons as a symbol of peace. At the earliest Olympic Games, the winners received amphorae filled with the precious oil and were crowned with a laurel of olive branches. Still today, planting or gifting an olive tree from Israel is considered a wish for good luck and success.

 

SEVILLANO OLIVE
Very large fruit, bluish-black when ripe. The largest California commercial variety. Stone large, clinging. Ripens early. Low oil content, only useful in pickling. Used for making Sicilian style salt brine cured olives, also the leading canning cultivar. Tree a strong grower and regular bearer. Require deep, rich, well drained soil. Will not stand much cold.

 

PLANTING

Olive trees require a well-drained soil and a sunny position. Avoid sites where water stands during rainy periods or where ground water seeps into a hole two feet deep. Except for wet, mucky or very acidic sites, most Florida soils are ideal for olive tree culture.

Choose a site that receives at least six hours of direct sun per day. Full sun is ideal. 
                                      

PHYSICAL CHARATERISTICS:
Sevillano trees have a spreading growth habit. The trees reach a height of twenty five to thirty five feet at maturity. The height of the Sevillano tree can be trained to stay lower making them relatively easy to harvest by hand. The Sevillano fruit is the largest of the variety that we handle. The fruit grows singly on peduncles and varies in shape to plum and ovate to elongated oval. 
                                           

CLIMATIC ADAPTATION:
The Sevillano is somewhat resistant to cold damage. The Sevillano is also used as a pollinizer for Manzanillo, particularly where temperatures may reach or exceed 95 degrees during pollination. 
                                          

HARVEST DATES AND USES:
Bearing in variable in Sevillano in addition to normal yearly alternate bearing, it reportedly may have a few off years followed by one year of a heavy crop. The fruits mature relatively late and are harvested in October. Sevillano is used mostly as a canned ripe olive or as a fermented Spanish- style olive. Its low oil content precludes its use for oil extraction.