Russian olives, olives, and wild dreams

Foliage of  the Russian Olive

Russian olive tree from my local nursery

I recently bought a Russian Olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia) from my local nursery, Little Tree. I have been looking for a slightly shrubby plant that would provide some interesting foliage and beautiful smell in my backyard. I had read on a few websites that it does well in containers and so I'm going to try this out for the next couple years. I know that in many US states Russian olive is considered an invasive species, but I have seen exceedingly few Russian Olives in the wild here in central Saskatchewan and so I think growing here they are near the limit of their possible range which hopefully will limit their invasiveness. This seems to be borne out by this thesis paper which indicates Saskatoon and Warman are outside of the suitable zone for rampant Russian olive naturalization.

Russian olive environmental suitability according to research
by  Lianna Collette

Regardless it is a beautiful tree, and an excellent fill in for my burning desire to try to grow a real olive tree in Saskatchewan. Olives (Olea europaea) are not related to Russian olives at all. I have not been able to find any information on anyone being crazy enough to try growing olives in Western Canada online. Information from Oregonolives.com indicates that they are getting successful harvests of olives from around 2350 degree growing days at 10C (athough this is fewer GDD than they normally get). In Saskatoon we can expect around 1200, so right off the bat this doesn't seem like it's going to end well. Research at the University of Saskatchewan has shown that growing plants like watermelon in high poly tunnels can increase the number of GDD's a plant receives from 1200 to 1900 GDD. I'm hopeful that given enough love and attention and a custom microclimate near buildings it may be possible. Obviously because these would be growing in an area many zones colder than they could possibly survive the olives would be brought into an above zero area for winter (more on that later).

Arbequina olives

According to Oregon Olives they have found the most cold hardy olives to be the Frantoio variety. The Saturna Olive Consortium located on Saturna Island in BC suggests Frantoio, Calletier, or Taggiasca mainly on the basis of the fact that they are self-fertile (though they are also hardy enough to survive in coastal BC). I had previously also heard a lot about the cold hardiness of Arbequina, but at this point I have not found a way to get my hands on any of these varieties as seeds will not grow true, so I suppose beggers can't be choosers. Hopefully by next year I will have more to report.