What is wrong with my olive tree?
I have a potted olive tree that lives in my room, in an east-facing window. Some of the light is filtered by a magnolia tree. I water when the soil gets dry, sometimes a little earlier; the water I use is tap water that has sat out for a while.
Some of its leaves are getting discolored and fall of with a light touch. There are two types of discoloration: brown at the tip, and brown on the face of the leaf. The ones that are brown at the tip are still solidly connected to the tree. I recently (a month ago) put a little metal bird in the pot as decoration (I don’t know what kind of metal, but it’s dark brown and not shiny), but I took it out today because I thought it might be hurting the tree. It’s also gotten pretty cold recently, and they’re next to a window, so it might be getting cold?
I’m also plant-sitting another olive tree from the same seller, but it’s doing fine. The two are next to each other to take advantage of the way the light shines, but should I separate them?
What’s wrong with it?
(Just a general olive tree question: is it okay that some of the other olive tree’s leaves have drops of something on the end of them? The drops are clear and look like water, but aren’t. They’re semi-solid and a little sticky.)
The brown tipped leaves could be senescent (old and dying naturally), or the discoloration could be due to water quality. Try water with less dissolved minerals content. (Letting tap water sit only abates any nominal quantities of chlorine, but does nothing else to the water.)
The sticky drops may be due to insect residents, but they might also be innocuous. Here’s a fairly good ID guide:
http://ag.udel.edu/EXTENSION/HORTICULTURE/pdf/ent/ent-48.pdf
I doubt the bird is the culprit.
Good luck!