Anybody know about pruning olive trees?

[zipzap]

Very excited, never knew this little corner (or should that be secret garden?) of MN existed!

Anyhow...

Just wondering if anyone can help me with regard to a couple of olive trees we have - we were given them as christening presents for ds1 about 7 years ago now, then they were probably 3 ft tall, long stem with ball of branches and leaves at the top (is that what you would call a standard style olive?). They have been planted in big pots and for the first few years seemed to do pretty well, we've wrapped them in fleece over the winter to protect them and it's always seemed to work.

Last year they never really got many leaves in the summer, but there were a few shoots.

This year, there has only been one little shoot about half way up one tree and nothing on the other tree.

However, both trees have several very robust shoots (each now up to at least a foot tall) coming out of the base of the trees.

Has anybody got any idea what to do - main options I can see are to:
1 - take all the bottom shoots off and hope that some life appears again at the top of the tree. may need some pruning at the top of the tree as some branches - especially at the extremities - seem to be pretty much dead wood. (and how far would you prune if this is the case?) And if I do cut the olive shoots off - is there any chance of propagating them, if so how?

2 - cut most of the olive tree off and turn it into a stubby bush, leaving just the shoots coming out of the bottom of the tree (which are looking pretty healthy with all this rain recently)

1. something completely different?

I can see that something needs to be done, I just don't know what. And I'm loathe to lose them as they were such lovely presents to receive!

thanks in advance for any advice!

Hi
I would go for number 2. If there are no leaves at the top by time time in the year then those parts are definitely dead.

By no account do number 1!

I would cautiously prune off the straggly dead wood first - it will probably snap in your fingers. Tidy it up for now until the growth at the base gets stronger and next year in early summer you can remove everything that isn't showing signs of life.

It's goodbye to your matching standard olives I'm sorry to say, but hello to more natural looking shrubby specimens.
In fact you'll never see a standard olive in nature, although they can take hard frosts, but not soggy roots.

I once rescued an olive tree from a pile of builder's rubble where it had been sitting roots up in the sun for two weeks.
It had a little green shoot - and it went on to live for a few years (until a hard winter outside when I forgot was too lazy to cover it up).