Apart from being a fruit tree, the olive tree has great ornamental value and has been used as landscaping plant for years both as a single planted tree and tree planted in clusters or in tree rows.
The main disadvantage of the olive tree as ornamental tree is the existence of fruits.
In all those cases where the presence of fruits is undesirable, 'fruitless' olive tree varieties are available and can be used.
Fruitless olive varieties have the familiar grey foliage of the olive tree, the characteristic trunks and grow normally, except that while they flower like the other varieties, they do not bear fruit.
This is a constant characteristic and is not at all related to the existence of pollinating varieties.
The fruitless olive varieties are considered suitable for small gardens, around swimming pools, pavements, and tree rows.
The olive tree is known for the color of its fruit, which gradually changes from green to violet during ripening and finally turns black.
Apart from these olive varieties, which represent more than 99% of the world's olive varieties and produce black fruits, there are always exceptions, i.e., olive varieties whose fruit color turn gradually from green to white.
These varieties should not be confused with the various cultivated so called 'white olives' or “Lefkolias” or “Asprolias” that exist, such as Lefkolia Serron, AsproliaLefkadas, etc.
White - fruit olive varieties produce fruits with a pure all - white color.
The most common form of olive tree is tree-shaped with a height ranging from 5 to 20 meters.
More rarely, the olive tree is also found in the form of a shrub or hedge in gardens and streets because of strict and continuous pruning that keeps its shape dense and limited.
However, there are also varieties of olives with limited growth, semi-dwarf or even dwarf varieties such as our nursery's Petite Helene™.
Petite Helene™ is a dwarf olive variety with dense grey foliage that reaches a final height of 80 cm without pruning.
As an ornamental variety it is suitable for creating low, dense, and hardy borders and can easily replace in landscaping even very low plants such as lavender, dwarf oleander etc.
Petite Helene™ is also suitable as a small bonbon plant and has been registered with certificate number 208160/05.05.2020.
The cultivated olive tree is classified under the species Olea europaea L. Apart from the cultivated olive tree, however, there are many other related olive species, some of which have great ornamental value, such as Olea chrysophylla Lam.
The golden-leaf olives vary greatly among themselves, both in the shape of the trees and in the density and color of their foliage. Some have solid golden-green foliage, others have greyish-green foliage like the common olive and others silver-grey.
A common characteristic of all golden-leaf olives is that their fruits are small, round, with a large kernel and contain no oil.
Golden - leaf olives are used in landscaping for the special color of their foliage and because their fruits do not contain oil.
