Olive Tree

Check your light →

Your sunniest window suits it, ideally an unobstructed south one, with 6 or more hours of sun on the leaves. Few Chicago windows manage that in winter; a grow light over it makes up the difference.

Outdoors it wants six or more hours of sun on the leaves a day (NC State), which few Chicago windows match in winter. Give it the brightest spot you have, and a summer outside if you can.

Short of that, a grow light over it through the winter makes up the difference.

A soak every 6-10 days in summer and every 10-18 in winter, with the top half of the mix drying between. It would much rather be dry than wet; soggy winter soil is what rots its roots.

Water until it runs out the bottom and empty the saucer. Let the top of the soil dry between soaks, which takes 7-14 days in a sunny summer window and longer in winter. Wet winter soil is the one thing it won’t tolerate: it rots the roots.

Gone for a while? Two weeks is fine if it’s watered the day you leave; an olive would rather be dry than wet.

One slender trunk under a rounded crown, slowly reaching 3-5 feet tall in a pot over the years. A spring trim of the branch tips, back to a side shoot, keeps it compact and bushy.

Growth is slow. To keep it compact and bushy, cut the tips of the main branches back to a good side shoot once a year, in spring; it branches below the cuts.

No reputable source rates it yet: the ASPCA’s plant list leaves it out either way, and so do CHOP and the University of California for kids. If a pet or child eats a lot of leaves, check with your vet or doctor.

It isn’t on the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, National Capital Poison Center, or University of California lists either. If a pet or child eats a lot of leaves, call your vet or the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center, or Poison Control.

1. UC ANR: unrated for kids.

Cats and dogs: None of the leading sources names it.

Kids: No child poison-centre listing names it.

Anywhere from 40-80°F suits it, so a cool sunroom is welcome, just not a freeze in its pot. Dry heated air down to 15% humidity is no trouble for a plant used to dry summers.

Temperature

40-80°F

Humidity

15%+

NC State lists no serious pests, and indoors scale is the one to watch: small brown bumps stuck to stems and leaf undersides, often with sticky drips below. Spider mites can turn up as well.

• Scale
• Spider mites

Few. NC State lists no serious pests or diseases; scale is the one to watch indoors, and root rot if the soil stays wet.

Scale looks like small brown bumps stuck to the stems and the undersides of the leaves, often with sticky drips below. Lift them off with a fingernail or a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol, then check again next week.

Root rot shows as leaves yellowing and dropping while the soil stays wet, most often in winter. Let the pot dry out, water less often, and make sure it drains freely.

Trim it for shape twice a year and sweep up its spring leaf drop; a monthly quarter turn toward the window keeps the crown even. Feed a few times in spring and summer, or top-dress in spring; repot every 2 years or so.

• Feeding or spring top-⁠dress4× a year
• Prune/pinch for shape2× a year
• Quarter-turn toward window12× a year
• Sweep dropped leaves4× a year
• Repotevery 2 years

A gritty mix that drains fast (ordinary potting mix cut with plenty of grit or perlite), in a heavy pot with a drainage hole, raised on pot feet so water never pools under it.

Repot only when the roots fill the pot, in spring, one pot size up.

Food helps it grow: a balanced liquid fertilizer once a month in spring and summer, and none in winter.

Narrow leaves about 2.5 inches long, gray-green on top and silver underneath, crown a slender trunk that gnarls with age. The head stays airy enough that the soil shows.