Scotland's mount of olives?

Published on Friday 1 August 2008 20:52

THE olive tree, whose expansive branches and ripe fruit are more evocative of sun-parched lands than sodden summers, is now hardy enough to handle Scotland.

The classic tree of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, which for millennia has thrived in baking heat, is being touted as able to withstand the freezing cold. Green-fingered Britons with an optimistic eye on cultivating their own olive groves can purchase a plant which the supplier believes is robust enough to cope with the winter.

The mail-order garden supplier DT Brown is introducing Olive "Veronique", said to be hardy enough to survive temperatures of -20C.

As a consequence of climate change, Britain's winters have become milder while summers are warmer, if wetter, and it is this change that, according to Amateur Gardening magazine, is promoting an interest among gardeners for more exotic plants.

DT Brown believes its olive plants can be grown outdoors in most places across Britain, which could mean olive groves springing up across hills such as the Eildons in the Borders. While cautious about predicting regular fruit, the company believes olives will grow during particularly fine summers.

Its website says: "Veronique is one of a new breed of olives so well suited to more northern climates that it will produce a crop of olives in most British summers.

"Hardy down to -20C, so (it] can be grown just about anywhere in Britain, it makes a high-quality olive oil, although we suspect you may not be able to make much from one tree. Highly decorative, it does well in poor, stony soils, so is a great choice for that awkward spot where little else flourishes."

Tim Jeffries, the company's general manager, said yesterday: "While Veronique will withstand extremely low temperatures, it is important that gardeners grow it in free-draining soil or compost that does not become waterlogged in winter."

The olive tree is famed throughout history and literature. A leaf from an olive tree is mentioned in Chapter 8 of Genesis, when Noah finds it in a dove's beak, and it is also referenced in the Iliad, which tells the story of the Trojan War and describes how warriors used olive oil to anoint themselves.

The olive tree also features in Greek mythology and is linked to the founding of the city of Athens, for Athena, the state's patron and a goddess, was said to have made an olive spring from a barren rock.

Yet last night the image of Scotland's landscape being reshaped by acres of olive groves was being treated with a degree of scepticism by Pete Brownless, garden supervisor of the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. He said: "It might make a nice shrub or bush but I wouldn't bet on enjoying regular olives to drop in your Martini glass."

He said that while the tree would be capable of surviving in Scotland's climate, it would take a good warm spring for the tree to flower, followed by a hot summer and a mild autumn for the tree to bear fruit. "It's technically possible, but I think the likelihood is minimal," he said.

It is a sentiment echoed by Nick Nairn. The culinary expert said: "Olives in Scotland? I'm not so sure. Olives taste disgusting off the vine – you have to process them and I doubt people will go to all that effort. I'd say this is a curiosity rather than a new industry for Scotland."