A compact, fruitless olive with dense, dark green leaves and silvery undersides. It takes heat, reflected sun and drought, and it shears neatly into hedges, globes and small standards with an easy Mediterranean feel.
Living with it in the Phoenix Valley
Watering
Follow the shrub schedule in our Landscape Care guide through its first season. Once established, it needs water only when the soil is quite dry. Overwatering is a bigger risk than underwatering, especially in heavy soil.
Pruning
It takes shearing well, so it can be kept as a tight hedge, a ball or a small single-trunk standard. Left alone it grows into a soft, rounded shrub. Shape it in spring and again in summer as needed.
Heat and sun
It handles full sun and reflected heat off walls and paving without scorching, which makes it useful along driveways and streets.
How our designers use it
Low formal hedges
It gives a clipped, structured edge to courtyards and entries without the water a boxwood or privet would need.
Mediterranean and desert-modern gardens
Its olive-green color works with stucco, gravel and steel, and it pairs naturally with agaves, rosemary and palms.
Containers and small standards
Trained as a small tree in a pot, it brings the look of an olive to a patio without fruit or size.
Good to know
Around the pool
No fruit and no thorns, so litter is light. It handles reflected heat off decking well and works close to the water.
