Add it to your home screen and it opens full screen: no browser bars, one tap away, and everything stays signed in. Free, nothing to download from an app store.
- Tap the Share button in your browser
- Scroll down and choose “Add to Home Screen”
- Open GrowSomeFood from your home screen
- Open your browser’s menu
- Choose “Add to Home screen” or “Install app”
- Open GrowSomeFood from your home screen
Russian Olive
The silvery, thorny shelterbelt tree the government once handed out by the thousand - now a listed noxious weed in Colorado and New Mexico that has replaced cottonwood and willow along western rivers. Edible fruit, and still never plant it.
Russian olive is not poisonous - the dry, mealy fruits are genuinely edible and are eaten across Central Asia and Iran. That is no reason to plant or keep it. The real hazard is mechanical: stout thorns up to two inches long cause deep puncture wounds that infect easily and flatten tires, so wear thick gloves, eye protection and stout boots to cut it, and rake the brush up rather than leaving it. If you forage an existing tree, skip roadside and ditch-bank stands, which are sprayed.
Overview
Russian olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia) is the gray-silver, thorny, sweet-smelling tree that lines ditches, fence rows, shelterbelts, and river bottoms across the Great Plains and the interior West. It was planted deliberately, by the hundreds of thousands, as a tough windbreak and wildlife tree for country that kills most trees - and it did the job. Then it left the shelterbelt. Birds carry its fruit for miles, and it now forms dense thickets along rivers, irrigation ditches, canals, and wet meadows, crowding out the cottonwood and willow that western river corridors and the wildlife in them depend on.
It is a List B noxious weed in Colorado and a Class C noxious weed in New Mexico, several New England states ban its sale, and states across the West and Plains list it as noxious or invasive - check your own state's list, and note that a noxious-weed listing can carry a management obligation, not just a sales ban. Like autumn olive, its eastern cousin, it comes with an honest paradox: the fruit is genuinely edible, eaten across Central Asia and Iran, where it is called senjed. That is a reason to use what you cut, not a reason to keep it. This entry is here to help you tell it from autumn olive, remove it properly, and choose a native windbreak instead.
Quick facts
For identification. Not a growing guide.
- Life cycle
- Perennial, lives about 50 years
- Where it grows
- Full sun · Part sun, well-drained soil
- Height
- 25 ft12 to 35
- Spread
- 20 ft10 to 30
- Cold
- Takes hard frostdamaged below -40°F
- Heat
- Struggles above 105°F
- Self-sows
- Yes. Never let it set seed.
Through the year
How to recognize it in each season.
Silver leaves & thorny growth (identify & control)
Apr to Oct, every year- Recognize it: narrow leaves silvery on BOTH sides, and real thornsRussian olive is a small, often crooked tree to about 25 feet, with shaggy brown bark and silvery twigs. The leaves are narrow and lance-shaped - willow-like - and covered in silvery scales on BOTH surfaces, so the whole tree reads gray-green from a distance. Branches carry stout thorns up to two inches long. Autumn olive, the eastern relative, is a shrub with oval leaves that are green above and silver only beneath.
- Pull seedlings, and never cut a big one without treating the stumpSeedlings and small saplings pull or dig out of moist soil, roots and all. Anything larger resprouts hard from the stump and root crown if you only cut it, so plan a cut-stump or basal-bark treatment at the same time, using a product whose LABEL lists the site you are treating and following that label. Wear thick gloves, eye protection, and boots - the thorns cause deep, easily infected punctures.
Key signs- Narrow willow-like leaves silvery on both surfaces
- Stout thorns to two inches on the branches
- Thickets closing in along ditches, fence lines, river banks, and old shelterbelts
Intensely fragrant early-summer flowers
May to Jun, every year- Small silvery-yellow flowers you smell before you seeIn late spring and early summer the tree covers itself in small, bell-shaped, silvery-yellow flowers with a heavy sweet fragrance that carries a long way - many people know Russian olive by the smell of a river bottom in June before they can name the tree. Pleasant, and a warning: a flowering tree is about to set the fruit crop that birds will spread all winter.
- Flag flowering trees for removal before fruit setNote which trees are flowering heavily and plan to take those out first - they are the seed source for the whole reach of ditch or river below them. On a working property, this is also the moment to talk to the irrigation district, county weed office, or extension service if the stand is bigger than hand tools can handle.
Key signs- Heavy sweet fragrance along ditches and river bottoms in June
- Small silvery-yellow bell-shaped flowers
- Heavy bloom signaling a heavy fruit crop to come
Dry silvery fruits & bird spread
Aug to Nov, every year- Mealy silver-tan fruits, not red berriesBy late summer the tree carries heavy crops of small oval fruits, silvery to yellow-tan and speckled, dry and mealy rather than juicy, each with one hard striped stone. This is the clearest split from autumn olive, whose fruit is soft, red, and flecked with silver. Birds and mammals eat them through fall and winter, and the seed passes through and germinates readily downstream.
- Remove fruiting trees firstFruiting trees are the engine of the invasion; take them out ahead of the non-fruiting ones. If you want to use the fruit from a tree you are removing, that is fine - it is edible - but skip roadside and ditch-bank trees, which are sprayed on a schedule, and never plant a seed or move a rooted sucker. Bag or burn fruit-laden trimmings per local rules rather than dumping them on a bank.
Key signs- Heavy crops of dry, mealy, silver-tan fruits
- Birds and deer working the fruiting trees through fall and winter
- Seedlings appearing downstream and along fence lines the following year
Winter form & the treatment window
Nov to Mar, every year- Silver twigs, thorns, and fruit still hangingBare, Russian olive is still easy to name: silvery-scaly twigs, long stout thorns, shaggy shredding brown bark, and often last year's tan fruit still hanging. Along a western river in winter, the gray-tan tangled thickets between the cottonwoods are almost always this tree - and the contrast shows you exactly how much ground it has taken.
- Cut-stump and basal-bark work is a cool-season jobLate fall through winter is the standard window for cut-stump and basal-bark treatment: the plants are dormant, the thorns are visible, and there is less risk to surrounding vegetation. Treat the cut face within minutes of the saw. Use a product whose label lists your site, follow the label, and if the tree stands in or over water - a ditch, canal, creek, or wet meadow - use an aquatic-labelled product and expect to need a permit or a licensed applicator.
Key signs- Silvery twigs, stout thorns, and shredding brown bark
- Old tan fruit hanging into winter
- Gray thickets filling the space between cottonwoods along a river
Hazards
Bird- and Water-Spread Seed & Hard ResproutingSeverity High DisordernowBecause seed arrives from upstream, one-property control rarely holds - county weed offices and irrigation districts often coordinate reach-wide work and sometimes cost-share it.
Seedlings along fence lines, under perch trees, and downstream of any fruiting tree; new stands appearing after a flood or ditch cleaning; thorny multi-stemmed clumps where a single tree was cut in a previous year.
Cut low and treat the fresh stump surface within minutes, or basal-bark stems under about six inches in the dormant season, using a product whose label lists your site and following that label. Expect to re-treat sprouts for several seasons.
Remove fruiting trees first to shut off the seed; do not plant seed or move rooted suckers; bag or dispose of fruit-laden trimmings under local rules rather than dumping them on a bank.
Why it reaches everywhere and resists removal: heavy crops of stony fruit are eaten by birds, deer, raccoons, and livestock and pass through intact, while fruit and seed also float down ditches and floodwater to germinate on bare wet silt. Any tree that is cut without treatment sprouts vigorously from the stump and root crown, and low branches buried in silt can root where they lie.
Riparian Takeover (ecological harm)Severity High DisordernowAnything that alters natural flood timing - dams, diversions, channel work - tips the balance further toward Russian olive, because cottonwood and willow need specific flood conditions to regenerate and it does not.
Gray-silver thickets filling the space between cottonwoods; no young cottonwood or willow coming up along a reach; thorny stands closing over ditch banks, fence lines, and wet meadow edges.
Kill the roots with cut-stump or basal-bark treatment in the dormant season, on-label; near water use an aquatic-labelled product with the required permit or licensed applicator, then revegetate with cottonwood, native willow, and native shrubs and follow up for three to five years.
Never plant it; remove fruiting trees along a whole reach rather than one property; keep native cover established so the gap does not simply refill from upstream seed.
The core hazard is ecological: Russian olive forms dense thorny thickets along rivers, irrigation ditches, canals, reservoir margins, and wet meadows, shading out the cottonwood and willow seedlings that western riparian corridors depend on. Those corridors are narrow ribbons of habitat in dry country, and replacing them with a thicket that supports far fewer native insects thins the whole food web while changing how banks and channels behave.
Thorn Punctures & Equipment DamageSeverity Medium DisordernowThe thorn hazard is the most common reason a homeowner stops halfway through removing one of these; plan protective equipment and slash disposal before you start the saw.
Thorns on cut brush and old slash piles; punctures that swell, redden, or stay painful days later; repeated flat tires on equipment working near a stand.
Clean deep punctures thoroughly and watch them - a puncture that swells, reddens, or stays painful needs medical attention, and tetanus protection should be current for anyone doing this work.
Wear thick leather gloves, long sleeves, eye protection, and stout boots to cut or handle it. Rake and dispose of slash rather than leaving it; keep brush off drive lanes and out of pasture and play areas.
A direct hazard to the person doing the work. Russian olive carries stiff thorns up to two inches long that drive deep into hands, knees, and feet and leave punctures that seal over and infect easily. The thorns stay sharp long after the branch dies, so old brush piles, cut slash, and drop-limbs remain dangerous, and they routinely puncture tires, hoses, and irrigation line.
Soil Enrichment by Nitrogen FixationSeverity Medium DisordernowThis is the same mechanism autumn olive causes in the East, and it is the reason a cleared Russian olive site often comes back in cheatgrass and weedy annuals rather than natives.
Russian olive colonizing bare, salty, or infertile ground; flushes of weedy annual grasses and forbs in the enriched soil beneath and around old stands.
Remove the trees, then monitor for follow-on weeds and revegetate deliberately with natives suited to the now-altered soil rather than assuming the original community returns on its own.
Remove trees before a stand matures and builds up litter and nitrogen; do not plant it on reclamation, shelterbelt, or lean sites, which is exactly where it was historically recommended.
A subtler and longer-lasting harm: Russian olive fixes its own nitrogen, so it establishes on lean, raw, alkaline, and salty ground where native plants struggle, then enriches that ground with nitrogen and leaf litter. Naturally lean floodplain and shrub-steppe soils shift toward conditions that favor weedy annuals and other invaders, so the site stays altered after the trees are gone.
Grower tips
Notes from growers, tagged with the zone they grow in. A person reads every post before it appears.
Nobody has posted about Russian Olive yet.
Free account. Your post shows your grower name and zone, never your email.