Though a few varieties bear showy flowers , afternoon tea olive ( Osmanthus spp . ) , also cognise as sweet olive , produces bloom that fill a garden with fragrance rather than color . Pruning the bush , which is evergreen plant in U.S. Department of Agriculture works hardiness zones 7b to 11 , at the wrong metre can carry off those sweetened - smelling blossoms . The best timing for pruning the bush calculate on the manner you apply tea leaf olive in your landscape .
Step 1
There are more than 15 tea olive coinage and legion constitute cultivar , wide grown where wintertime temperature do not often plunge below zero degree Fahrenheit . The shrub grow best in full sun in well - drained , average dirt ; they do n’t blossom as well and tend to have sparse foliage in the shade . Members of the olive house , they do produce violet olive - similar drupe if flowers are n’t snip away . The yield attracts razzing to the garden . Many tea olives can mature into small trees , up to 30 pes improbable depending on species , but are normally found from 6 to 12 feet tall in landscape . The shrubs are not view invasive and are rarely devil by pest or disease when grown in their preferred conditions .
Annual Pruning
Most afternoon tea olive motley flower on old wood , think of they get their annual pruning after they bloom . Annual pruning consists of take out dead , broken and crossing branches , slenderize congested emergence and shortening stems for height control or to encourage shaggy-coated ontogeny . Fragrant tea European olive tree , or seraphic olive ( Osmanthus fragrans ) , can bloom off and on nearly year - rotund , so metre pruning to follow peak flush , which is tumble through early winter in most case . Tea olives generally train a strong , tree-shaped social organisation with branch off one to three trunks without much assistant , so it ’s ok to skip an annual pruning if your plant is lush and a desirable size .
Step 2
Step 3
Hedges
Small - leafed tea leaf olives are often trained as formal hedges . The good time for pruning a tea olive hedge is in the summer after new growth has slowed . Burkwood genus Osmanthus ( Osmanthus X burkwoodii ) , worthy for USDA zone 7 through 10 , is a common hedgerow because of its dumb leaf . Holly Camellia sinensis olive or false Buddy Holly ( Osmanthus heterophyllus ) has little , obtuse foliage that is spiny when young and is recommended as a privacy hedge in USDA zones 7 through 9 . Delay pruning sour holly hedges until after they bloom in the autumn if you do n’t want to lose the fragrant flowers . reduce formal hedges so they are wider at the radix than the top . For a more attractive tea olive hedging , go back over them after shear with bridge player pruners to take away leaves dress in half and twig nub , and to thin small areas throughout the canopy to let in illumination and air .
Renewal Pruning
A neglected tea olive has a disposition to get leggy — lose leaves at its base — and looks more like a small tree than the thick , sheeny shrub that once provided a animation screen . Tea olives can generate growth even on mature halt with leaves only at the canopy when you rationalise them back firmly . Renewal pruning is the exception to the linguistic rule of pruning after salad days . Because the stress on the plant is expectant with this drastic pruning , which call off for murder one - third of the old stems to the radix and shortening the remainder by one - one-half , it is best accomplished in late winter to other spring when temperatures are coolheaded and the plant life is prim for new growth .
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