Olive Olea europaea Tolleys Upright

The grower's sheet says the variety tolerates most soils and prolonged periods of dryness, and prefers a humus-rich, well-drained soil in a sunny position. Those are a grower's words, not a graded rating: no independent reference read rates Tolley's Upright for drought or frost.

The sheet says it responds well to pruning and can be grown with a single leader or pruned into a hedge for screening.

On fruit the two sources use different words. The grower calls it low-fruiting and says that, in a streetscape, there is no problem of fruit dropping on pathways; Merri-bek City Council's olive entry calls it almost fruitless. Neither says it never fruits, so allow for some fruit. The council's entry describes the olive it recommends as a small upright tree to 6 to 7 m with silvery green foliage and a trunk that becomes twisted and gnarled with age. The species' climate, soil and pest notes are on the olive page.

The grower's sheet puts Tolley's Upright forward for streetscapes, because, it says, fruit dropping on pathways is not a problem, for informal screening and for planting in numbers where space allows, and says olives suit residential gardens as long-lived trees of small stature that are easily pruned. It can be kept to a single leader as a tree or clipped as a hedge. With a mature size of 7 m by 4 m on the grower's figures it is a small tree, and no reference read gives a spacing for it as a screen.

Growers list this plant as Olive Olea europaea Tolleys Upright. The sources read describe a low-fruiting tree for streets and screens, so a buyer who wants a crop should look at the fruiting varieties. The table above shows the sizes growers list, and the pot sizes guide explains the grades. What to look for in the plant itself is in the HortOS guide to nursery plant quality. For advanced trees, the guide to specifying and procuring trees sets out what to ask for. Stock crossing a state border moves under the state and territory biosecurity rules.

The Queensland Government's Weeds of Australia fact sheet says the common olive is regarded as a significant environmental weed in South Australia, where non-cultivated olives are declared plants, and as an environmental weed in Victoria, Western Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT. HortFlora says the seed is spread by birds and foxes. The sources read call Tolley's Upright low-fruiting or almost fruitless, not sterile.