[Marilyn]

Oh what a lovely topic. Truly stunning characters, all of them, an extraordinary symbol of resilience and patience!

I agree wholeheartedly with the comments about seeing them in the nursery, it is quite shocking, but I am pleased to report that I have 88 mature olive trees in the garden here, most of them only around 100 years old, so babies by comparison, but they are doing just fine and, as far as we know, would have gone to the bonfire if we had not re-homed them.

The largest is this one, which we estimate to be somewhere around 300 years of age:

[John J]

Olive picking - Cyprus style!!

[MikeHardman]

Good game, good game!
Doing mine in the next few days.

[David Bracey]

I thought it was another guessing game; who and where.

[John J]

You could always take a flying stab at it, David, no prizes for a correct answer though.

[David Bracey]

Not many clues.  Face is well hidden however pink Adidas trainers might be a give away.

[JTh]

I saw something that was new to me when I visited Brian in Spain last week, in many of the olive groves the bottom of the trunks were covered with soil, and I was told that there were two explanations for this practice, 1: to make it easier to gather the olives when they were falling down, 2: to prevent the growth of suckers. Have any of you an opinion about the usefulness of this practice?

[Alisdair]

No experience/opinion, Jorun, but a question: was that ground bare because of (a) cultivation (b) herbicides or (c) utter drought?

[JTh]

I am not sure, but this scraped surface seemed to be the result of some mechanical work, if they used herbicides as well, I can't tell. In addition, it was terribly dry, they had no rain for several months (the rains started when I left).

[John]

It also looked just like this when I was out there with Brian in May! No weeds, nothing else.

[Alisdair]

I much prefer to see olive groves full of wild flowers, like this one in the Greek Peloponnese, in late spring....

[JTh]

I agree, Alisdair

[Fleur Pavlidis]

In our old olive grove the soil has piled against the trees by default from when they used to plough between them. I don't see any reduction in suckering.

[David Bracey]

There are many old traditions (?) associated with olives, for example to keep the centre of the tree open enough to allow birds to fly through.  But why?  No one has an answer. I suspect its the same with hilling-up olives.  Very unlikely that herbicides are used. As Fleur says it will not reduce suckering, if anything it will increase it.  Maybe someone , sometime said that it will reduce water loss or even frost damage.  Probably it is the result of continuous cultivations.  The same can occur in most tree crops. 

[John]

Here's a similar picture to the one Jorun posted near Brian's of some older trees with larger mounds. There is some weed growth which does look like otherwise there is intensive weed control.