I have a bunch of young fig plants that got rooted way too late in the season. Some are duplicates/airlayers but I also have a couple of rare ones. My I258 order got delayed and I didn’t get it until September. Didn’t have much hope for it, but two of the four cuttings have rooted. Some only have a couple of leaves (see pictutes).
My more mature figs are dropping leaves and going dormant, but the young ones are staying green. What is the best course of action? Shouls I wait for the leaves to drop or a frost (whichever comes sooner) and put them in the unheated garage in a hope that they go dormant? Or should I place them on a heating mat by a south facing window and try to grow them through the winter?
I think put them in a south window, but skip the heat mat if they’re already rooted. Better yet, put them under 12-18 hours of grow light if you have it. I rooted figs in the fall last year and held them over the winter just using a window. Not ideal, but it worked well enough.
Come spring, you’ll have to very gradually acclimate them to full sunshine, especially if you just have window light.
This what I did last year, I put a lots of young fig plants inside inside the shed. I placed them on plastic tubs so I could water them once in a while since I put a heater with a thermostat so it will come on when temperatures will drop. Most all of them eventually drop the leaves, come spring have to acclimate them gradually to full sunlight. And it worked fine
I put fully rooted 1-gallon plants in dark basement. I believe they are half dormant now. They will push yellow tops in late winter. Then I’ll bring them in garage.
I would keep them from going dormant, the light of a south facing window would work, yet even better would be to add additional hours of light, the days are so short this time of year, freshly rooted fig trees by nature resist going dormant and they’d have all those normal dormant months to grow. You don’t need a heat pad.
I let them go dormant and store in a connected garage. No matter how small. Sometimes they do die, but so far only seedlings. Rooted cuttings that are very small seem to do fine. They do poorly when they don\t have time to get used to the cold. If temps slowly drop they adjust extremely well.
Here are my small fig plants. They have not had much growth over the past 6 weeks or so when the first cold night hit. They are all seasoned and weathered outside. I hope they keep this way to late winter. They are just some unknown plants.
I also keep some other plants in basement for semi-dormancy, mostly clivia.
I would bring them indoors.
Give them plenty of light. I use the adjustable gooseneck lights with 100 watt Led lights.
But they do need a little chill, so I would put them outside when the worst of winter is over.
They need a few weeks of temperatures between
28 and 40. East wall of a house is the safest place.
We rarely get cold enough to hurt figs, but it does happen about 1/7 years.
Hello,
i’m a fruit grower and collector from Estonia, EU. I’d like to get in touch w you, maybe we can exchange some interesting grafting material? I apologize for being rude, since this is really off-topic.
It is illegal for me to accept scion from Europe. Not a chance in hell I would break the law. I have no interest in selling either. Domestic trade only. Now let’s get back to the subject at hand.
@Jegor.Dejev There are OurFigs.com members that are based in the EU. They can probably help you or point you to licensed nurseries in the EU that can ship to you.
Figs are not stone fruits. There are plenty of people in Europe that have rare plants, especially pomegranates. There is no need for you to ask anyone in the USA, which is where many of the most active members on here are from. What are you looking for?
Thought I’d post an update. These never went dormant and overwintered swimmingly in a south facing window at my work. Roots are poking out from the bottom. Going to repot them this weekend (one pot has two rooted cuttings) and start acclimating them to the outdoors. All my other figs that did go dormant are waking up too, but are not as robust as these guys.
Very nice looking. Some say fig plants need dormancy to rest. Not sure about that. In its native land, it is more of the drought season, not the cold temperature.
To me, this is more about the winter storage. I have limited indoor space and it is a lot of work to baby those tender plants. So I let them do dormant and store them in basement. I watered them about once every two or three weeks. Just less work.
