A friend has a mostly ideal site to plant a fig in Spring (probably will be Hardy Chicago here in zone 7B): southern exposure, full sun, up against the white brick wall of her house.
Problem: that spot is in a wind corridor (wind coming across a broad reach of open water off a tributary of Chesapeake Bay).
So my question is: does the full sun/southern exposure up against a large masonry wall of a heated building partially overcome the wind problem?
Could a lattice to windward (West) help enough to justify planting there or is it hopeless?
The problem with the wind is dessication which can actually be more injurious to the plant than cold temps.
When winter comes, drive some stakes in the ground around the fig, and wrap enough burlap around the stakes to give the fig a windbreaker. (This might take a lot of burlap.). Anything else you could do to block the wind would also be useful. A bare trellis I don’t think would be very useful, unless you found a way to make it into more of a wall. (Maybe do a separate series of stakes farther out and wrap a tarp around those? But not too close to the tree.)
I think with those measures, the tree should be fine. Some people stuff dead leaves inside the burlap and over the tree, which theoretically helps, but that has a tendency to invite pests, like voles, to make a nest there, so I wouldn’t do that.
ETA: I thought you were talking about for winter. Now that I read it again, I see you might have been talking for all the time.)
I have a black mission fig in DC Zone 7a its not up against the house and winds can get strong on occasion. My Beloved fig never had any winter damage until the polar vortex of 2014. It died down to the ground that year. It has since regrown from the roots and is now a multi trunk monster.
Theoretically, dessication is a danger all the time, but practically, if you live in the east, where it is humid during the spring/summer/early fall, I think you don’t have to worry so much. Dessication is when more water is taken from a plant than it can replace, and this is much more of a problem in the winter because the air is much less humid and the plant’s metabolic processes slow down. When you add wind to that mix, it can be deadly.
By the way, what kind of winds are we talking about here? Like there is usually a lazy breeze (5 mph), sometimes escalating to a stiff breeze (15 mph)? Or an “I’m in Oklahoma during the winter with no windbreak” wind—which can easily have sustained winds 20+ mph as an everyday occurrence, and touching 30+ sometimes in completely expected?
I think we’re talking Oklahoma. Wind howls across the width of Chesapeake Bay unobstructed by anything and smacks into the Eastern Shore where we live.
If that’s the case, tell him to take a cutting this winter and stick it in a pot to grow.
Then plant this one where he wants, and try to provide as much windbreak as possible. See how it goes, make sure to water frequently, and protect in the winter. I think if anything has a chance of surviving those conditions, I think a fig might, but I dunno.
If it thrives, it thrives. If it doesn’t, he has the one in the pot he can plant somewhere else.
I have relatives in the aforementioned Oklahoma (well, actually in North Texas, but same difference.). Things planted out in the open, with no wind break tend to either die or not do well, but there’s exceptions (not many, but some).
I think any kind of windbreak he could rig up would be very beneficial to the situation.