Pruning the Olive trees with Anne

Anne and Mark were here when we arrived. We'd forgotten to leave the key out. We unpacked the delicious goodies Anne and Mark bought and had beef Wellington for dinner. Next day, out and a row before breakfast. Anne and I pruned the olive trees. Anne is a master pruner of roses and put all her skills and experience into the trees. They certainly looked slimmer.

We pruned over 20 trees. Some hadnt been done last year, we looked at it, decided which branches didnt belong and used the ratchet lopers and the saw with the larger branches, and our secateurs for the smaller ones. Have a look at this. One criteria we used was ' could a bird fly through this swiftly'. If yes, we decided it was enough. We took off all the dead wood, any branches growing across the middle of the tree, and any branches which crossed over others. That was quite a bit for some trees. We took off branches lower than a metre from the ground. For our break we pruned the roses. Using similar principles of opening out the plant, nipping off bugs if more than one came from one node. These are the roses Claire and I planted in June. They are beginning to grow. Anne opened them out, gave them shape, a great teacher. David an Mark completed the watering system for the oak trees and the roses along the front fence and had a few consults with Mike who was working on the stone fence. Now we can water the oak trees for an hour each day while we arent here. Fantastic. I went back to Wellington for Saturday night and when I got back, even more trees had been pruned, and Anne was on the mower between the vines, and then proceeded to mow amongst the olives, it looks like a park!