Texas Gardening: San Antonio is nice , 1 by hrp50

hrp50 wrote:
I’m glad to see that the San Antonio/Hill Country area is looking better and greener. I was in San Antonio this past week and comparing how it looks now versus when we were in Marble Falls/Fredericksburg over the Labor Day weekend, the country side has made quite a comeback after some rain and cooler temperatures. Back in September the only green plants anywhere were the prickly pear cacti which were abundant.

The San Antonio Botanical Garden was nice but I would definitely like to see it in a different season of the year. My highlight of the trip was a visit to the Sandy Oaks Olive Orchard and Nursery near New Braunfels. The owner, Saundra Winokur was nice to give us a tour on Wednesday even though the normal tour day is Saturday. We bought olive oil, skin care products made from olive oil, and I bought a small olive tree to bring home and plant. I know the odds of ever producing an olive in the Dallas area are slim, but I wanted to experiment and I liked the way the tree looked. I bought a “Mission” olive variety which grows up to 20’ tall, but I plan on keeping it pruned back and planting it in a large container so I can move it into the garage on really cold nights (Saundra told me that they are cold tolerant down to 10 degrees but I have read otherwise). I guess that I would be getting ahead of myself if I started shopping around for a used olive press for producing olive oil? Does anyone else in zone 8a have any experience growing olive trees?

I named my olive tree “Ollie” which you can see is a handsome tree.