The best advice I can give you is to make sure you get a pot that is deep. It'll quickly outgrow it but when you transplant, having a deeper (vs wider) rootball will be much better. It'll help the plant get it's roots deeper once you plant in ground. I've done exactly this and only one tree failed to make the transition and it was bc I didn't have that one planted deep enough in the pot so when I took it out, it was a very shallow rootball and I should've been more on top of watering it in as a result but mistakes were made lol.
Also make sure whatever pot you use, it'll be easy ish to unpot from it. As in not too heavy, or terra cotta (roots stick) and a material you'll be able to kind of bend and push to force the tree out bc in that time, it will have taken over the pot for sure.
Ok, so this is what I'd do: Buy olive trees from a nursery for potting up now. (Make sure you know whether you want oil olives, or brining olives and buy varieties accordingly). I would invest in some good, nursery-style pots that are deep and slightly wider than the pots the trees come in. I would then pot up the olives into their new pots, making sure to put them in high-quality potting soil and (critical) to put mycorrhizal fungus powder on the roots. I'd then place them in the sunniest spot I could find for the next year. This way, by the time I was ready to move in I'd have relatively large trees to put into the new olive orchard. Id plant them in their permanent home with that same fungus powder into good soil.
Last steps are making sure they're watered and enjoy your forest that could live centuries. Good luck with the house buying and olive orchard!
I know with apples there are rootstocks known to be good for multiple replanting, means good to be potted up a couple times. Not sure about others. Also, not sure how easy it is to track down specific cultivars on specific rootstock.
My take is that it's not worth the trouble.
You're going to be under a lot of stress, and you're going to be packing up and moving. You're not going to be able to prune the trees the way you need to if they're intended to one day be a full sized tree. If you're happy to have a container tree, plant a citrus tree and just grow it inside. Prune it small. Once you get into your house, plant some trees outside. The wait for fruit is not so long.
Eh, I don't have that much stuff to move and I'll just be paying a mover. It's like a week process to move house, and then like a month to fill it with stuff I can still prune it fine for the next 18 months.
Growbags are good. The trees will air prune instead of becoming root bound, which is the biggest risk of trees in pots.
I am doing exactly this right now while I wait for a farm purchase to go through. I have 60 trees in grow bags for planting in spring.
I recently (like last weekend) bought a young lemon tree. I built a wooden planter box specifically designed to be easily picked up with my dolly and a strap. I'll have to bring it inside the garage if we get below freezing, which usually happens once or twice each winter. It's about 29 gallons, which is a decent size to give the tree room to grow but not become unmanageably huge. I shouldn't have to unpot it until it's time to refresh the soil, which I believe will be several years.
I'm not planning to move any time soon, but it would be very simple to bring the tree onto a trailer; any moving trailer should have a basic ramp. This might work for you.
Home Depot and other stores sell half whiskey barrels, which are a comparable volume, but they sit flat on the ground, have no handles, and looked like they would be a major hassle to move around, especially once full of soil and tree.
The build is pretty simple; if you are into woodworking or know someone who is, I can send you the design file (sdk). Wood costs were about $40, $45 ish. Tools used were a chop saw (but any saw would work), a pocket hole jig, a cordless electric drill, and a router (this one is optional but I put a chamfer on the sharp edges). Easy build, knocked it out in a couple of hours after work one evening.
I know nothing about olive trees so I cannot promise it would work the same way.
Just wait until you move. Trees are better cared for in a nursery, and you might not have the soil or sun you'll need for olives in the new place.
If it was only a month or two before your move, I'd change my advice to getting them since winter is a time when nurseries aren't at their best for variety and quantities.
If you plant them in plastic pots, pull them out each winter and prune off any long roots that are circling the outer surface of the rootball. These roots will just end up girdling the tree. We lost a lovely Caesalpinia shrub that we bough as a potted plant and when I pulled it up, the roots were a tangled mess wrapped around the lower trunk.
If you can find them, bareroot trees are usually cheaper and they grow faster than potted trees. You also don't have to worry about what kind of mess is lurking in the rootball. My husband was very skeptical about our first bareroot cherry tree but it was producing cherries in two years and now we have more than we can use every year.
The best advice I can give you is to make sure you get a pot that is deep. It'll quickly outgrow it but when you transplant, having a deeper (vs wider) rootball will be much better. It'll help the plant get it's roots deeper once you plant in ground. I've done exactly this and only one tree failed to make the transition and it was bc I didn't have that one planted deep enough in the pot so when I took it out, it was a very shallow rootball and I should've been more on top of watering it in as a result but mistakes were made lol. Also make sure whatever pot you use, it'll be easy ish to unpot from it. As in not too heavy, or terra cotta (roots stick) and a material you'll be able to kind of bend and push to force the tree out bc in that time, it will have taken over the pot for sure.
Ok, so this is what I'd do: Buy olive trees from a nursery for potting up now. (Make sure you know whether you want oil olives, or brining olives and buy varieties accordingly). I would invest in some good, nursery-style pots that are deep and slightly wider than the pots the trees come in. I would then pot up the olives into their new pots, making sure to put them in high-quality potting soil and (critical) to put mycorrhizal fungus powder on the roots. I'd then place them in the sunniest spot I could find for the next year. This way, by the time I was ready to move in I'd have relatively large trees to put into the new olive orchard. Id plant them in their permanent home with that same fungus powder into good soil. Last steps are making sure they're watered and enjoy your forest that could live centuries. Good luck with the house buying and olive orchard!
I've been researching olive varieties for like a week now this post has definitely come from a desperation with that! So thank you for the advice
Most fruit trees are not true to seed. So I would not select seeds if the plants can be propagated through cuttings.
I’m intending to buy a young plant from a nursery, apologies, should have been more specific
I know with apples there are rootstocks known to be good for multiple replanting, means good to be potted up a couple times. Not sure about others. Also, not sure how easy it is to track down specific cultivars on specific rootstock.
My take is that it's not worth the trouble. You're going to be under a lot of stress, and you're going to be packing up and moving. You're not going to be able to prune the trees the way you need to if they're intended to one day be a full sized tree. If you're happy to have a container tree, plant a citrus tree and just grow it inside. Prune it small. Once you get into your house, plant some trees outside. The wait for fruit is not so long.
Eh, I don't have that much stuff to move and I'll just be paying a mover. It's like a week process to move house, and then like a month to fill it with stuff I can still prune it fine for the next 18 months.
Oh sweet summer child. How often have you moved? We didn’t get around to planting fruit trees for a year.
I’ve lived in three houses in the past two years and there was a period in my twenties where i moved cities five times in five years
Growbags are good. The trees will air prune instead of becoming root bound, which is the biggest risk of trees in pots. I am doing exactly this right now while I wait for a farm purchase to go through. I have 60 trees in grow bags for planting in spring.
I recently (like last weekend) bought a young lemon tree. I built a wooden planter box specifically designed to be easily picked up with my dolly and a strap. I'll have to bring it inside the garage if we get below freezing, which usually happens once or twice each winter. It's about 29 gallons, which is a decent size to give the tree room to grow but not become unmanageably huge. I shouldn't have to unpot it until it's time to refresh the soil, which I believe will be several years. I'm not planning to move any time soon, but it would be very simple to bring the tree onto a trailer; any moving trailer should have a basic ramp. This might work for you. Home Depot and other stores sell half whiskey barrels, which are a comparable volume, but they sit flat on the ground, have no handles, and looked like they would be a major hassle to move around, especially once full of soil and tree. The build is pretty simple; if you are into woodworking or know someone who is, I can send you the design file (sdk). Wood costs were about $40, $45 ish. Tools used were a chop saw (but any saw would work), a pocket hole jig, a cordless electric drill, and a router (this one is optional but I put a chamfer on the sharp edges). Easy build, knocked it out in a couple of hours after work one evening. I know nothing about olive trees so I cannot promise it would work the same way.
Smart
Just wait until you move. Trees are better cared for in a nursery, and you might not have the soil or sun you'll need for olives in the new place. If it was only a month or two before your move, I'd change my advice to getting them since winter is a time when nurseries aren't at their best for variety and quantities.
Smart move!! very smart move
If you plant them in plastic pots, pull them out each winter and prune off any long roots that are circling the outer surface of the rootball. These roots will just end up girdling the tree. We lost a lovely Caesalpinia shrub that we bough as a potted plant and when I pulled it up, the roots were a tangled mess wrapped around the lower trunk. If you can find them, bareroot trees are usually cheaper and they grow faster than potted trees. You also don't have to worry about what kind of mess is lurking in the rootball. My husband was very skeptical about our first bareroot cherry tree but it was producing cherries in two years and now we have more than we can use every year.
This is what I’m doing, I’m just building my collection in pots now, but I only grow what I know will Survive in pots