Olea europaea "Favarol"

The olive is an evergreen Mediterranean tree or large shrub, the narrow leathery leaves gray-green above and silver below, the flowers small, white, and fragrant in axillary racemes in late summer. Where summers are dry, that fruit becomes table olives and oil. Where summers are wet, as here, the crop is unreliable and the tree earns a place for other reasons entirely: for the color of the foliage in low light, for the character an old trunk develops, and for the fact that an olive in a Carolina garden is still an unlikely and pleasing thing. A commercial grove has gone in down in south Georgia, which is encouraging, though the University of Georgia is still calling the question open.

Favarol belongs to the olive groves of the Garda Trentino, at the head of Lake Garda in the far north of Italy, which is about as far north as olives are farmed anywhere in the world. Records of the variety reach back to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Favarol survives as one of a handful of minor local cultivars that the sheer antiquity of olive growing around Garda has preserved, while the rest of Italy consolidated around a few commercial names. Genetic survey work on the ancient Garda trees places Favarol close to Mignolo Toscano. Whether that northern latitude has left the variety any hardier than a Tuscan or Andalusian olive is an open question, and a fair reason to try one.

Favarol is self-sterile, which is the ordinary arrangement among olives and worth planning around: another variety flowering at the same time and within pollen range, or no fruit. Established trees are notably drought tolerant, as anything off a stony northern Italian hillside would need to be. Growth is slow, and slow growth in an olive is no fault, being exactly what produces the dense, twisting wood that makes old specimens so good to look at.

Fifteen to twenty-five feet here, rather than the thirty a Spanish oil variety will reach, which makes Favarol the more manageable of our olives for a courtyard or a small garden. Full sun, and drainage that is genuinely sharp. Plant high rather than deep, keep clear of irrigated lawn, and prune in late winter to hold the center of the canopy open, since moving air is the cheapest defense against peacock spot and anthracnose through a wet summer. The silver foliage sits well against warm stone, gravel, and the Mediterranean herbs.

A very old Italian variety, propagated by Woodlanders from a tree at what was then Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Georgia. This batch was struck from cuttings taken on the Armstrong Campus again in August of 2026.