The mystery of olive tree pruning

One of my three olive trees, seriously in need of a haircut

“Ora ho capito!” he said, meaning that he thought he’d finally got the hang of pruning our three medium-sized, relatively young olive trees, and he wielded his long-armed pruner dangerously, confidently lopping great lengths of olive wood and their silver-green leaves. I looked on dubiously, ducking the falling branches, and thought how unlikely we were to ever get an olive crop again.

Pruning olive trees is an art. It is not a task for the novice gardener. Here in Tuscany, I tried to follow a short course in olive pruning once, but was soon lost in a forest of Italian horticultural terminology and came away none the wiser. It really seems to be “a mystery buried deep in ancient folklore”, as the Mediterranean Gardener puts it. And yet we have young(ish) Italian friends who will confidently and competently tackle the task, leaving lovely trees looking shaved but still harmonious, with no lopsided branches to be seen.

I think it's probably one of those tasks you have to have grown up with, watching your elders as a child and then gradually absorbing their techniques to perfection, like cooking at your grandmother's side.

Unfortunately, in my youth there weren't many olive trees around in Shropshire to make this possible (and not so many even now, I suspect), but my olive trees have more of a decorative role than anything else and I do not depend on them for a harvest, so the occasional haphazard pruning upsets only my sense of harmony.

There is plenty of practical advice available out there for anyone in need. Here are just a few of the links I've found:
On the importance of olive tree pruning
How to prune an olive tree in 30 seconds (video)
Potatura olivo (video)

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