Winter hardiness
Moderately winter hardy
Pruning
Once a year
Growth rate
20-40cm a year
It is also called olive willow or silver berry, the Elaeagnus Ebbingei. It is a hedge plant that stays green all year round. Do you live on the coast? In that case too, this is a perfect plant for your garden. It is very resistant to wind and salt. If you don't prune it a lot, it will produce beautiful white flowers in the fall. When these have finished flowering, nice, red berries appear. Which in turn are very attractive to the birds in your area.
In the Netherlands, in addition to the original name, we have two other names for the Elaeagnus Ebbingei: the olive willow and the silverberry. These cause the necessary confusion. The olive willow is not an olive tree and has nothing to do with the tree where those delicious olives come from. The name silverberry suggests that we are dealing here with a prunus, a berry bush. Which is not the case, despite the fact that red berries will grow. The fact is whatever name you use, we understand which beautiful hedge plant you mean anyway and that's the point.
A hedge of olive willow or Elaeagnus can reach a height of 1.60 meters to 1.80 meters. Are you very fond of your privacy? Keep in mind that the olive willow hedge is not immediately visible. That will take a few years. But the more you prune, the faster it will go. Then you will soon find yourself behind a beautiful, evergreen hedge and close out prying eyes for 365 and sometimes 366 days.
This olive willow can be planted all year round. Unless it is freezing or snowing.
Water your Eleagnus Silverberry regularly for the first few months after planting it. Keep this up until the hedge starts. After that, you only water in dry periods. Pour the water directly into the root ball. In this way the roots of the plant can immediately absorb the water.
The best time to fertilize the hedge is from April to September. It's enough to do that once a year. Do this after you first prune the plants. Use a fertilizer that has been specially developed for fertilizing hedge plants.
We wrote it before: you can always plant the olive willow, just not when it is freezing or snowing. But you probably don't intend to plant the hedge plants in that cold weather either.
How many plants you need per linear meter depends on the size of the plant, but also on your preference. Let us advise you.
The silver berry is generally a very healthy plant. It rarely, if ever, shows signs of weakness or illness. It can, however, lose its leaves or even become completely bare. When will this be the case? If the hedge plant is exposed to high humidity or severe drought for a long time, it will lose leaves. This can get so bad that it goes completely bare. It is therefore of the utmost importance to make sure that it is neither too wet nor too dry. The plant can also lose its leaves in very severe frost. It is therefore advisable to cover the plants when it starts to freeze heavily.
Whether you live on the coast or somewhere inland, this beautiful hedge plant with white, fragrant flowers in autumn and red berries in the months after, will look great in your garden.
Do not hesitate, buy this olive willow and enjoy the green hedge with sometimes red and sometimes white accents.
Do you have any questions? Please do not hesitate to contact us.