Yesterday evening, forecast said it would be in the 30 this morning. They were wrong (again). It was 26 F this morning.
This evening when I got home and checked my potted figs, the leaves of almost all the plants were toasted. The only one that leaves looked relatively well is Chicago Hardy (I have one in ground and one in pot). At least, it showed me how cold tolerant this variety is comparing to others.
I’d guess zero is probably the limit, it is really hard to say because there are other factors like microclimates, wind, and level of dormancy.
It’s going to be in the low 20s tonight. The only in-ground fig I have is just starting to ripen on Nov 10th. That’s too late so I’ll remove it from the garden. I was told it was a Brown Turkey but the figs from the last two years were not brown so maybe not. A few of the figs were a week away from full ripeness so at least they were edible but it’s too much trouble for results like that. It will get replaced with an unknown local fig I have potted and hopefully that will ripen sooner.
It was 26 in Chicago’s suburbs too this morning. Rose , Stevie, tea, kale, collard leafs are still undamaged
Roses and mums are OK but this hard frost did a number on cannas, hardy bananas and most of my figs. It was not just low temp. It was killing frost, too.
Damage from a friday night (temperature just below 20f, with no prior killing frosts) is becoming apparent.
Brown leaf scars from enzymes released due to cell bursting:
Unprotected, vigorous tree in the open, leaves are hard to pull off, a layer of the petiole remains attached.
Over the last few weeks I’ve finalled begun picking at the swelling Battaglia Greens. These formed late in the summer, after the potted plant suffered shock damage from two hot weeks without water (vacation neglect).
Here is today’s fig. Dark red inside. Edible. Mildly sweet, but would probably be lots better if it were still hot instead of cold. Scar almost completely dry. Just a little latex sap. Skin tough and leathery with the usual disappointing vegetative taste typical to cold-ripened figs.
An underwhelming conclusion to this year’s drama. I have high hopes for next year… if I can keep the plant happy…
I failed to water my potted HC late this summer and basically destroyed most of the tiny figs. The trees leafed back out in the fall and I uppotted them in to twelve gallon containers. I brought them in before frost and put them in a sunny window. It would no doubt be best to let them go dormant for the winter but I selfishly decided to keep them growing in the window. I really enjoy having something green to occupy me in the winter, I think it is therapeutic. I now have a couple of figs forming. Do you have an opinion on what would happen to the figs? Will they stay on till spring?
I am still eating fresh figs for Thanksgiving. I am glad I brought them in the sunroom before hard frost about 3 weeks ago.
Tony
Black Jack is huge!
Sal’s Corleone is also big and very good tasting.
Nero 600M and a few more…
Those black jack really look nice, do they taste similar to HC?
Black Jack taste somewhere near the Black Mission fig but Sal’s Corleone, BARI, and Nero 600M are a tad better.
Tony
This is a cool way to do multi grafts fig tree. Please use your grafting knife or box cutter and do not use the blade like this gentleman.
Tony
Since my figs are all in-ground here in 7B, where tops frequently die back to the ground in winter, am guessing grafting would be pointless unless winters warm significantly and consistently.
Yeah no point. I grow in containers, and they have grown widely large in numbers, so putting one or more cultivars together makes sense for me. I’m going to do this to reduce the amount of containers.
Thanks for posting Tony, very interesting techniques by this guy. I’m going to try them myself.
Me too. A very clever way of grafting with a high percentage of take and spared the original cultivar.
Tony
Figs are easy to root graft, the most difficult part is working below ground level.
I thought he was going to prune his finger off when he was cutting the roots on that container tree! I use a rusty old Japanese back cut saw.
Hello guys,
I’ve been reading this topic ,and few more, for a long time but I did not answer so far.I am particularly interested in plants that cannot easily grow here,but only for the hobby. The most for pecan, jujube, paw paw and cold hardy figs. I got everything except pecan, that’s my unfulfilled wish 
. Tonny was perhaps the most informative for me, share the same interests.
Have you tried to grow anjeer Kohi Mountain Fig? It should be able to tolerate big minuses. I have small figs from the seed, a man from Netherlands sent me the seeds.They were quite small figs, but sweet. I’ll see how it will handle this winter. Before that, I tried with various varieties, but they were all froze to the ground every single year.
Already have some tip dieback on some figs so I’m giving them more wood chips. A trick when loading wood chips is take a rake and back right up to the pile and build a ramp into the back of the truck. This allows you to rake them into the truck instead of shovel them. It only works on tall piles of wood chips. I have a couple of pickups and in this picture I’m using my older truck to load some wood chips. When you unload them rake them out. The smaller the head of the rake the faster you can load them.
Hi Lilke,
I don’t have that cold hardy mountain fig but have about 40 plus different varieties by next summer. I do have some in-ground figs that I Winter protected them by cutting the branches down to about 3 feet tall and buried the tree with wood chips and placed an upside down trash can over it. This method will prevent die back to ground level.
Tony
Tony- Is the trash can to keep rain/snow off the fig or for thermal properties?
