Some have recommended to bury fig plants deep at planting. Some say 6-8" or 8-12" deep below soil level.
When I planted several young fig plants, I did bury them about 6" deeper below normal level. Three of those plants never came up this spring. When I tried to dig up, this is what I found:
We had a cold spring. The plant woke up late. When it tried to come up, it could not. It was buried too deep. Over the summer, water can’t penetrate the deep soil layer. This plant barely survived.
So burying deep has both pros and cons. With heavy soil like mine, this makes the plants to struggle.
It sounds like you planted your figs in ground while dormant. Every fig I have planted in ground while dormant has died. I now only plant figs while actively growing in spring or summer.
For me I bury them a little deer each time I up pot and then again once they go in ground. Never a huge change in one step. In the past I’ve seen people talk about planting them deep in ground by digging a deep hole but only filling it in a bit at a time as the tree adjusts. Of course one must factor in the problem of dense soil like you have…
The cuttings were normally about 8" long. When re-potted, about 4" of the original cutting is at soil line and 4" is below soil line.
When I planted the plants in ground, I believe I planted the original cuttings flush or 1" below soil line. So it is about 5" deeper than in containers.
Certainly older plants would be able to survive better. But the fact that those plants are still alive, but not able to come up, that points to getting buried too deep. Or I should have removed some of the soil in spring.
A lot of people who plant fig trees in an area with hard soil amend the soil around the tree, were we plant ours was already amended compared to some of the nearby soil, and we still amended it more. Also I always plant right after last chance of frost. Other wise the fig trees do not have much time to grow roots before the first frost. That is especially important in hard soils, and in colder climates.
“Nowadays we do not recommend amending soil when planting trees. Otherwise, roots like the amended soil and would not spread into native soil.”
I assume that by “we” you are talking about whitcomb based research. This research pertained to full sized forest trees and not fruit trees where it’s way too expensive to amend enough soil to serve them once they approach mature size. Or you may be talking about adding amendments to small planting holes where the roots needs to grow from.
Amending poor soil is very useful in establishing most tree species and especially smaller ones like most types of fruit we grow. Figs thrive in a soil with good drainage and a lot of organic matter, and it’s especially useful in trees that are grown with roots growing out of pots or in-ground bags that are severed every season to store in an unheated garage, or whatever, or if you kill a lot of roots to put them in horizontal position to cover them where they are.
If the soil is very poor and heavy clay I use a lot of sand and composted stable waste (more wood than manure) or composted most any organic matter such as woodchips or leaves (I even rake it from nearby forest on my property sometimes- especially for blueberries). I’m talking about a third yard of sand and same of compost per tree spreading out at least 5-6 food in raised berms. It works best if you use about half of it to mix with the top few inches of clay and top with a sand-compost mix.
For figs in containers you might need to keep the amended soil in tighter, higher and deeper rings around trees, hollowing out the center near the trunk so it’s easy to water and mulching well with woodchips, leaves or hay.
I have soil similar to that in a few places…and looking at your pic… it looks like the roots were trying to find some kind of nutrition and gave up. That soil (like mine) needs some organics and biome.
My neighbor put his greenhouse on soil just like that and got bumper crops with gypsum for 2 years then the third year it was exhausted…and nothing grew but weeds.
Amend your holes and get the soil living again i think.
I do not think it has anything to do with native soil condition. I have 40 fig trees in ground from the past two years. Never anything like this. My neighbor has a 18+ year old tree and it grows to about 8’ every year after winter kill to ground.
It is also not recommended to amend native soil with long lived trees. Then roots will become circled in amended soil.
I just think it should be a gradual process if we want to bury young trees deep. They will struggle like this if buried too deep.
@Red_Sun – I believe that you are in NJ. That looks like red GA clay. If your soil is similar, I assume that water has difficulty penetrating.
I know from the experience of a relative in GA that fig trees can have a difficult time getting established there, but once established do fine. Probably as in the Mediterranean, the trees need time to develop deep roots that can access sub-soil water. It seems that lots of extra watering may be needed in the interim.
I’ve never planted fig trees deep. I imagine that the trunk would throw out roots, creating a more vertical root “ball.” Your tree doesn’t seem to have done that, presumably because the surrounding soil is so hard and dry. I doubt that trees would struggle if buried deep in a rich loam.
I re-planted one of my in-ground trees this summer, sometime in June. This time, I created a water basin with the bottom flush at the original soil level of the fig plant. The water basin itself is about 3" deeper from ground level. This makes watering much easier. So water will not just run off. For winter, I can just flatten the water basin and move the soil to fill the basin. But I need to re-create the water basin again next spring.
Sure it will be different story with much older plants, or in rich loam soil. I just did not expect this much trouble this year since I had no problem the year prior.
Fig cuttings root very easily ‘everywhere under the soil level’, as long as the soil is warm enough. I think that the problem in your case is that you needed to water the ones with the problem more intensely, at least until the roots are much better established. It seems like you are planting in much harder soil than we have planted in because we amended it. I myself have not noticed any root problems with our trees after amending the soil. Here the trees can rot if the soil is not amended.
I’m not sure you understand the objections to amending soil for trees. It is very useful to amend heavy clays for smaller trees, there just isn’t much you can do for Maples or other big forest trees because amendment projects would have to be massive It is also a mistake to put something like peat moss or compost directly in a small hole- that is the situation you seem to be talking about as far as roots leaving a small amended pocket of soil.
Because you haven’t asked, I won’t bother to write how I amend clay to favor vigorous establishment of fruit trees, but I certainly have observed figs establishing much better in lighter, OM rich soils than yours and I would amend it and grow my figs on berms in any heavy clay soil.
I certainly understand amending soil. But I’m a firm believer not to amend soil when planting trees and large shrub. That is something folks debated at least decades ago.
The reasons folks say not to amend soil is:
Those trees or large shrubs live for many years. Roots can extend to like 30’ or 50’, as far as the roots can reach. A radius of 3’-5’ amended hole will not amend the entire soil.
When growers “amend” native soil by adding compost or other “better” soil, you create an artificial layer of “better” soil than the native soil. Then roots prefer to stay in the better soil and root can become circled and tree can suffer.
Resources needed to amend the soil. I do not have the measure. But I figure a 3’ diameter hole may need 100 lb soil. A 5’ diameter hole would need more. At my property, I have hundreds of trees. I do not have earth moving equipment.
Our native soil is farm land with red clay based farm soil. It is also filled with some small stone. It is not the solid grey clay that people use to make clay pots. It is not perfect, not manageable. I’ve planted 40+ fig trees in ground over the past two years. Never lost a single plant.
It is just the last winter. I saw some members here recommended to bury fig plants 8"-10" deeper than normal. Then I decided to experiment with that. I had my doubt about that deep. So I did not bury that deep.
For my experiment, there are several other factors too. First, the new plants are too young, not strong enough to endure the hard winter. That is the first lesson learnt. Then the cold and late spring weather. And the extremely dry summer. Burying deep is part of the entire story. It does not help. With hindsight, it is not good to plant very young plants and not to bury plants too deep.
My neighbor has an unmanaged fig tree that grows to 8’ every year after winter kill. So I know our soil is adequate. For my 2nd year trees, some grow to 4’-5’ after winter kill to ground. That is fine with me for trees in the open and not wrapped. I do not need trees to 8’-10’ tall.
I also grow some fig trees in containers for trialing and experimenting. But I can’t change native soil. I adapt my gardening with native soil and do not try to change it.
So I just planted a 2nd year tree in ground to replace the one died from last year. The tree crown is set at about 2"-3" below ground line. And I made a mound that is 2"-3" above ground level. So the fig crown is about 4"-5" below the top of the mound (water basin). The crown or the original tree line is exposed to sun and receives water. So the stress to the plant will be minimal.
I also re-planted another fig tree in late June, mainly a piece of old wood. It is about 2’ tall now and sets several figs that I expect to ripen this season.
That is the same with almost everyone in New Jersey or in more NE states. We all know we get a dry summer. My neighbors lost quite many old landscape trees. They are 10+ years old.
But my 40+ fig trees are all alive and doing well. Only one of the young trees died and two are still dormant. They are among almost 10 young trees I planted last summer.
This is also precisely the reason that I do not want to amend the soil. We can’t drag the water hose to water some old landscape trees. Some of my neighbors spend like $3k+ to fertilize and care for their lawn. With the drought, their lawn looks much worse than ours. Their grass and trees are not used to the stress of the nature. So they can’t made it.
