Balconies · Roof terraces · Courtyards
Most olive trees sold for terraces were lifted from a grove, had two thirds of their roots cut off and were pushed into a container to be sold within the season. They look magnificent for a year and then sulk, drop leaves and slowly decline, because a root system built for open ground cannot support that canopy in eighty litres of compost. Ours are grown in containers from cuttings, root-pruned and potted on through their whole life, and shaped for the wind and the light a terrace actually has.
About us
The nursery was founded by a horticulturist who spent several years supplying landscape contractors with field-lifted olives and watching a distressing proportion of them fail on the terraces where they had been installed. The trees were not defective and the clients were not neglectful; the problem was structural, built into how the trees had been produced. Rather than keep apologising, she started growing them the slow way and sold nothing for the first four years.
Every tree here begins as a cutting from mother plants of known variety, is grown through a sequence of containers with the roots pruned at each move, and never spends a day in open ground. That produces a compact, fibrous root ball that fills a pot rather than circling it, and a canopy proportioned to the roots that carry it. It takes between six and twelve years to reach the sizes people want on a terrace, which is why our stock list is short and why we tell customers honestly when a size is unavailable.
The other half of the business is what happens after delivery. Trees are placed and planted by our own team, the client is shown how to water — which is where nearly every failure begins — and we return to prune and inspect on a schedule if they want us to. We would rather sell fewer trees and have them alive in fifteen years, because a mature olive on a roof terrace becomes something people are attached to.
Advantages
Six differences you cannot see when you look at a tree in a garden centre.
A field-lifted olive loses most of its root system to the spade and spends years trying to rebuild it while supporting a canopy sized for the roots it no longer has. Ours are root-pruned at every potting-on, which forces a dense fibrous mass that occupies the whole container instead of spiralling around its wall. The tree you receive is already in balance, which is why it puts on growth in its first season rather than merely surviving it.
Trees raised under polythene look lush and collapse when they meet real wind and full sun. Ours stand outdoors in an exposed position from their second year, so the wood is dense, the internodes are short and the leaves are the hard silvered kind that resist desiccation. A roof terrace is a brutal environment — reflected heat, constant wind, no shelter — and a tree needs to have already lived somewhere similar to cope with it.
Olive varieties differ enormously in vigour, leaf size, cold tolerance and whether they will ever fruit usefully in a container. We propagate from identified mother trees and tell you what you are buying, recommending compact slow varieties for balconies, more cold-tolerant ones for exposed northern sites, and fruiting types only where the position and pollination make that realistic. Unnamed trees are unnamed for a reason.
Canopy structure comes from a decade of light annual pruning, not from a hard cut before sale that leaves a ball of foliage on a bare stem. We build an open framework that lets wind pass through instead of catching it, keeps the interior lit so it does not go bare, and looks natural rather than topiaried. Trees pruned this way need far less intervention afterwards and recover quickly if a branch is lost in a storm.
A large tree in a container is heavy, awkward and easy to damage in a stairwell or a lift. Our team delivers, carries, positions and plants it into your pot with the correct free-draining mix, checks the drainage actually works, secures it against wind if the position demands, and takes the packaging away. Access is assessed from photographs beforehand, so nobody discovers on the day that the tree will not fit through the door.
Almost every potted olive that dies is drowned rather than starved, usually by an owner responding to yellowing leaves with more water. We explain how to test the root ball rather than the surface, what the seasonal rhythm should be, why the saucer under the pot is the enemy, and how an automatic irrigation timer set for summer will kill a tree in November. It takes twenty minutes and prevents most of the problems we are later called about.
Services
Young trees, mature specimens, pots and compost, planting and delivery, maintenance, rescue work and trade supply.
Container-grown trees from three to eight years old, in sizes suited to balconies and small terraces, in named varieties chosen for compact habit and wind tolerance. These are the trees we recommend for anyone starting out: they establish quickly, cost a fraction of a specimen, are light enough to move without help, and will develop character in your own conditions rather than arriving with someone else's. Advice on the right size for a given pot is included.
Trees of ten years and older with substantial trunks and developed canopies, for clients who need immediate presence on a roof terrace, in a hotel courtyard or at an entrance. Every specimen is photographed from several angles and available to view at the nursery, because a tree of this size is bought for its individual shape. Numbers are limited by the simple fact that they take a decade to produce, and the list is often short.
Unglazed terracotta, glazed ceramic, fibreglass and powder-coated metal containers in sizes matched to the tree rather than to the shelf, plus our own free-draining mix of loam, grit and bark that does not compact into mud after two winters. Weight matters on a terrace, so we can advise on lightweight options and calculate loaded weights for anyone who needs to check them against a structural limit before ordering.
Our team delivers and carries the tree to its position, plants it correctly, checks drainage, secures it against wind where needed and removes all packaging and spoil. Access is checked from photographs in advance — stair widths, lift dimensions, balcony doors — and specialist lifting is arranged for large specimens where a crane or hoist is the only sensible route. Delivery covers the region, with scheduled runs further afield.
Annual or twice-yearly visits to prune for structure rather than for tidiness, refresh the top layer of compost, feed appropriately for the season, check for scale and other pests, and repot when the root ball has filled the container. Clients with several trees, and hotels and restaurants with terraces of them, are on a fixed schedule. We also prune trees we did not supply, which is frequently a matter of undoing an earlier haircut.
Diagnosis and recovery for declining trees — usually overwatering, compacted compost, blocked drainage or a root ball that was never right — carried out on site or at the nursery for serious cases, with an honest opinion when a tree is beyond saving. For landscape architects, contractors and garden centres we supply by the batch with plant passports, delivery scheduling and matched specimens where a scheme needs several trees to look like siblings.
Contacts
Send photographs of the terrace or balcony, tell us which way it faces and how exposed it is, and we will suggest a size and variety that will still be thriving in ten years. Specimen trees really should be chosen in person; the nursery is open for visits and there is no obligation to buy on the day.
Trade enquiries and scheme quantities are handled by the same address.