I took a small walk through the olive grove to see how the newly planted trees were holding up in the summer heat.  The trees look great.  Strong, green and upright, there were only three out of almost two hundred and fifty that were showing signs of heat stress ... not a bad percentage at this stage. The swales have retained moisture and cause some of the grass to remain green through the hot summer and I've noticed quite a few mobs of kangaroos in the grove munching down on this green grass.  Thank goodness they have not found a taste for young leaves of the trees, although I have suffered one casualty that can be seen below.

Whilst uneaten, this little olive tree was mobbed and you can see from the tree guard that it was  accidentally stomped on a few times.

As I assessed the damage, my mind wandered 12 to 24 months ahead.  I will at some stage need to prune the olive trees - I will be pruning them into a vase shape.  The tree will essentially look like a vase, the central leader will be cut and the outer branches will create the outer wall of the vase shape.  This allows air and light to penetrate through the tree and also increase fruit set.

I hope the damage to this tree will end up being just a premature prune of the central leader and that it can recover quickly.