Once mine goes dormant /leaves drop… I collect cuttings from my shoots… and leave only about 2 ft stumps… which i surround with tightly stacked hay bales… and i fill the center with dry pine bark mulch… cover it all with a large tarp… and a couple more hay bales on top of that.
10 hay bales total.
I expext that this is way more protection than it may need here in z7a… but it works great.
I am sure your winters are much more extreme than mine.
i cut the roots on one side and layed the tree on the ground then covered with a tarp then blew snow on it. it survived -40 3xs last winter with no damage. after springs frost were over in mid June i uncovered and tipped it back up. mulched around it and it continued to grow. unfortunately our season isnt long enough to ripen chicago hardy so i have a florea in its 1st year im going to do the same. supposedly it ripens earlier.
yes. it was 3 years old. 1st winter it froze to the ground but came back from the roots. grew to 6ft. then i tipped it over and covered. this summer it grew to 8ft and 6ft wide. lots of figs that never ripened. ill prune it back and overwinter again. if no figs ripen next summer ill cull it.
It is just too short a season if you can only dig it up in mid June. In my zone, I’ll have to get figlets by late June to early July to get any ripe figs.
I’ve had basically 100% success starting fig cuttings in the ground outdoors here in Seattle, even with our unusually cold spring this year. I posted in the other thread this spring after these four appeared to have rooted successfully:
Here’s what they look like today (probably should’ve given them more fertilizer this summer), so some day this will be a 4-in-1 fig tree:
well the figs started to form at the same time it leafed out but CH ripens too late, Florea fruit ripens a month earlier. JesseS is just south of me in z4b and his ripen i believe late aug. he grows in ground also and overwinters with wire and leaves for protection instead of cutting roots and tipping over.
I’m a newbie regarding fig propagation. I decided to divide and conquer, go with the easiest method and use less stuff without having to go out and buy more. I don’t have a heat mat, but the fig cuttings inside are pretty dry, they are next to a glass window.
So I potted some in clear plastic cups, 3 in plastic bags as fig pop method, and I also grafted 15 fig varieties to my Desert king, and a few others. Really, I just want to spread the risk. I only want White Madeira #1 and Black Madeira to root.
Last year I did the same way for a Desert King, natural tip, no wrapping, the fig is a big tree now at my brother’s house. So I’m taking a risk this time I know.
I also did dip into rooting hormone, I know I’ve read it can cause rotting, but we will see.
I see something on White Madeira #1, Black Madeira, and Noir de Barbentane, these figs are inside.
Update, I moved all of my plastic containers outside after killing one red spider in one trunk. I really don’t know how it get in there in the first place. So now I only have 3 fig pops inside.
Some buds are swelling, more than a few days ago, maybe that’s sign of life in there. The grafting of I-258 and Violetta seems to be selling as well, either that it’s my imagination. But checking on my fig babies everyday for progress is fun.
What’s better way to spend my winter here, lol.
Here is my potted figs outside, not covered, no heat mat, I know I’m taking a risk. BNR(in red circle) is the one I’m most concerned with, I ordered for grafting, but I forgot about it.
One of the Col De Dame varieties has some mold or dead or something ugly on the top, sigh.
So far I only water these pots once, but we have rain coming and I don’t know what to do.
So far Bass is not doing well as a graft, I’m not seeing any bud, but Violeta is doing well on the same tree.
However Violeta is not doing well in the pot. Maybe it’s dying, who knows. But I’m not up potting these until late June.
I just started some fig cuttings about 11 days ago, which I got from DAVELn17 (Thanks Dave). I hedged my bet by doing half using the shoebox method and the other half using the popsicle stick method. Just checked yesterday and the cuttings in the shoebox were full of mold, but the popsicle ones were still ok. I decided to wash off the moldy ones, trimmed off the ends again and redo some using the paper towel method and the remaining soda bottle method. Hopefully, eventually I’ll get some of those cuttings to root. Everyone on here make it look so easy.
