Summer Olive Blow Out and Clean Up

artsofjc

This time of year, I pay considerable attention to the olives in my collection. I have let them blow out their aggressive growth twice this year; Spring and Summer. The pushes of growth generate a huge amount of leaves and long spikes of growth that strengthen the tree. I even reworked a small olive I had in show recently after my teacher indicated it needed more refinement.

Olives that are not cleaned out this time of year suffer from white fly and scale infestations. Since I have cleaned them already once this year, I saw not signs of white fly for a change and only a few California scale which I kill with some alcohol and a cotton swab after removing the carapace.

First up is the olive shohin:

This is how the tree was in the show before refinement. Too many strong upward branches.