My VdB is not that cold hardy. It was a potted tree kept in a garage. My garage can get down to 10-20 F. It died to the soil line and re-sprouted.
These days I keep my potted VdB in the unfinished basement instead.
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Hi Richard,
You have a beautiful looking VdB there. Congrats.
I just bought a VdB today (Dave Wilson - in a sleeve) but it looks very twiggy and is about 3ft tall. The width of the trunk is about a pencil or pencil and a half thick and seems way thinner than I’d expect for a fig. The Flanders fig they also had in stock was the same height but much thicker.
I plan to grow this in a 30gal pot.
I was wondering if I should go ahead and cut it to 18in when planting it? Also - near the root, there seem to be multiple tiny shoots about to emerge - which would make this multi trunk if I let them go. Based on the thread above, I think it’s clear I need to keep rubbing those out and make the tree focus on the single trunk.
I feel like I know I need to cut it to 18in but I think I’m thinking in my head if it’s even worth trying to get this super thin trunk to grow or if I should order a new one from FourWindsGrowers and hope I get a better and thicker (stronger) tree.
In either case, should I expect/hope for fruit set this year?
I’m in Irvine (Zone 10).
Thanks!
The branches will thicken as the tree grows. If you’ve got a twiggy cutting you might worry about it drying out and/or rotting before it roots, but once it’s got roots and leaves…it’ll probably be fine.
Figs usually have multiple stem forms unless you keep removing new branches growing from the base. You probably don’t have to worry about it freezing in zone 10, so you can grow a permanent trunk out of a single branch if you’d like or let it be more shrubby.
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Thank you! I will do that. Appreciate the advice.