Think I've lost an olive tree

I’ve got 3, this one got too dry over last winter and lost all leaves. I’ve pruned it hard, below green areas. there is one shoot about 3" above the soil line. when the leaves dropped I panicked hard. watered it deep. the trunk is alive to just below my pruning line.

it was 3 years old and about 5 feet tall. an arbequina. I’m hoping it bounces back this year- I’m not sure if I should go ahead and repot it or just wait until fall to get it in ground. or if I should be giving it good deep soaks. it’s been a container plant all this time but will be in ground this fall.

it was doing well that way up until winter (the drip for it got clogged and it went dry as a bone for a month)

the part I pruned down that was brown, not green

the shoots from the bottom are all buds like this

I’m zone 6b and we get very cold winters so it spends the time in the darker hoophouse with the figs. summer it gets all the sun and heat it can stand. I usually deep water weekly, twice if it’s over 100F

any advice from olive growing people?

chopping it was the right decision, in case anyone else runs into this problem. I’m pretty sure it’s not grafted so it is the tree I wanted and growing back from the base. if it was a graft and this is the rootstock I can always try to graft on it later

Olive trees are tough, it’s not easy to kill one (except by cold).

Olive trees are almost never grafted (except for a few specific varieties that don’t root easily), so you still have an Arbequina. I don’t think it’s a good variety for a home grower, since the fruit is very small, it’s mostly suitable for commercial growers who use machine harvesting.

Do your olive trees bloom? Since they are evergreen, their natural life cycle is not suited for spending the entire winter in the dark.

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one does, not this one but an older one. it took a few years to do it. I’ve had them in low light over winter every year, the oldest is 4 years old.

they seem to do ok as long as it’s not fully dark. I just use a shade cloth on the sunny side of the hoophouse. I could bring them inside to a sunny window over winter if I can get my partner to help move the big pots, I think. they might do better

I got this variety because I love tiny olives. it’s the only arbequina I’ve got

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