I thought it would be nice to have a place to post about growing figs. They are one of my favorite fruits. They grow well here, maritime Pacific NW US (but do much better in California of course). Our coldest winters get down to about 9F (-12 C I think) but not often. Usually the coldest winters drop to about 15F (-9 C?) The cold is the limiting factor although our cool short summers mean some varieties wont produce well or at all. Our coldest days don't last long and only happen a few times each winter. They don't mind hot dry summers. I have about 15 varieties.. I grew most of them from cuttings. Mine are starting to grow for the season and some have figs starting to form. I'll post more later. This year in March (I think) I gave this one (Hardy Chicago Fig) a very severe pruning. The branch ends looked bad. I thought it was the cold spell - down to 9F. The others didn't have a problem. It was much too tall to manage so I cut it back by about half the height. Figs are pretty resilient. I've been watching for awakening buds. It's a bit later the other fig trees now, but there is growth from every branch, several buds each. I don't know if this tree will bear fruit this year. It might. Most fig trees usually have fruit starting at about the fourth to sixth leaf node and need about 100 days of sun and warmth to mature. If it doesn't, there are other trees. More to follow
I don’t have figs, but I would like to read what you have to say about yours. Figs do not grow well here in our climate.
Here are a couple of my mid summer fruiting fig trees. Lattarula. Lattarula has an interesting story. It is also known as "White Marseilles". Thomas Jefferson had it in his garden at Monticello in colonial Virginia. I suspect it was grown by his enslaved workers and not by him specifically, but I don't know that. I hope they got to taste them. It bears a midsummer crop and a fall crop. It's my best producing variety. Desert King. A modern variety from California that does well in Maritime Pacific NW. This is the "Baby" Hardy Chicago fig plant that I bought this winter as a bare root at the big orange home improvement store. It's meant to replace one that was destroyed by voles. I usually grow fig trees from cuttings but (a) I was feeling lazy and (b) these are supposedly grown by tissue culture and have supposedly had all of the fig viruses removed. I wondered if that would help it grow better.
Logan, it looks like he's in Yelm WA, a bit north of here but might be lower elevation. I expect his figs would grow similar to mine.
https://petalsfromthepast.com/figs/ A couple of fig pruning and care videos from a local nursery. The background noise comes from insects like cicada. Our woods are very noisy with love sick insects during summertime. I planted a Chicago Hardy Fig last fall, I had to move my old one as it was too close to some sick Sugi we have planted on a fence row as a privacy screen. I was using systemics on the Sugi and also wanted a fig out where it could develop a full habit. Here in the deep southern summer heat I enjoy the large broad leaf shade provided by figs. And they make a nice screen too with their leaves to the ground. We will cut the centers out of them, and they grow around the perimeter of the root. This allows them to be more reachable and less dense inside over time. Once that root gets established they seem to be as hardy as a crepe myrtle root. You could cut them to the ground and they flourish back in a bushier way.
I checked growing degree days for Birmingham, May 1 to Oct 1, last year. It came to 4735 GDD. That compares to mine was 2671. I bet the vast majority of fig varieties would grow and produce MUCH better for you than for me. It's not just the cold and heat limits but also the growing degree days. Even so, some varieties are very productive and reliable here - Lattarula, Desert King, Sicilian White, Hardy Chicago. I push the limit with some others but can't recommend them here because bearing is so iffy in my climate. I would like to try Olympia, which I guess is from Olympia, WA north of me towards Puget Sound. Thanks @Dirtmechanic for the video - interesting viewing! I don't understand his "Fig Belt" line at Birmingham unless that is for commercial production. Lots of people grow them as yard fruit trees in N. Carolina, even some in New Jersey. Lattarula is known to do well in Virginia. Arkansas is good for figs, but I don't know how far North. I have some pruned as trees and some as very big bushes. Deer tend to eat lower growth so I can't grow them as low bushes. I think my sweet spot will be to cut branches off at about 5 or 6 feet high every other year. After bearing for early (breba) bearing types that bear on old wood, or in Spring for late bearing (main crop) types that bear on new growth. Here, Hardy Chicago bears on new growth.
I think those videos come from a time when we were zone 7, and now are 8. 20+ years ago we got cold enough to freeze our first fig, and it happened again maybe 10 years ago. I understand that was 10f and probably higher humidity to freeze the turkey fig.
Hello all! I am having issues with growing my figs here in Florida.. zone 9b. I’ve had this fig tree (bush?) for about 6 or 7 years now. Every year, it grows great in the beginning of the season, dark green leaves and produces a LOT of figs. Then, these spots start to form, which leads to the leaves eventually turning yellow and falling off. The figs still grow, but seem to be overtaken by birds or squirrels. I usually only get about 5 or 6 figs for me to eat! It’s very frustrating. I haven’t really tended to the tree until this past season. I googled what to do. I cleaned it up, pruned it, and have sprayed a copper fungicide in the dirt around it, on the bark and also on the leaves as they started to grow. I’ve sprayed the copper about 3 times now this season. I think it may be helping a bit, but seems like the spots are inevitable. Any suggestions? I have another fig tree on the other side of my yard that does not get these spots and also produces a lot of figs but they too, get devoured by birds... how do you all keep the critters away?!
That spot is called "Rust" a common fungi. You should stop spraying the copper anyway as buildup of copper in the soil is proving problematic. The pathogen is called Cerotelium fici. This is the modern name. You should google for the older names as a search for fungicide may have those names. Mancozeb fungicide will also work, but you must begin spraying in the off season, to kill what is being harbored and have defense against the life cycle as temperatures and moisture allows for rust to bloom. It is an airborne spore as well. Dormant oils are useful on fruit trees for airborne spore, and any soft skinned tree like fig, as a protective breatheable layer of protection. You may wish to research whether the phosphite family of fungicides are useful on Cerotelium fici. Phosphites are systemic potassium that a plant takes in but cannot use and so bumbles about inside looking for some creepy pathogen trying to stick its dirty hyphae into plant cells. Because trees are slow to grow, they are slow to react and absorb everything else too. Thus you must reset your expectations and realize any positive changes are most likely to begin showing up next spring though some topical treatment like Mancozeb, or general sanitizers like Povidone Iodine (2TBSP per Gallon water) are going to show fast results. Generally the tree should be getting sprayed every 3 weeks when it is under attack.
@FLgarden your climate is much more tropical than mine, so what I say may not help. I don't know much about rust so will defer to @Dirtmechanic who I think knows his stuff As for birds, they devour my raspberries, blueberries, and cherries. I buy streamers of holographic bird scare tape and hang them all over the trees and vines. Then birds don't touch them.
Here are some of my figs now. Three varieties are looking especially good - Desert King, Lattarula, and Brunswick. I hung some yellow jacket traps. They are my major fig pest - they tunnel into the figs just before they ripen, so when you pick a fig a bunch of angry and vicious yellow jackets come out of the fig, and they destroy the entire crop. The traps seem to work very well, and I get to harvest and eat my figs. I also made these fig bars but they were made from dried Mission figs from California. They were very rich and tasty.
Here is the fig tree that I first posted about. It is a Hardy Chicago fig tree that was way too big and had a lot of winter kill, so in March I gave it a severe pruning. It was VERY slow to show new growth after that, but it finally did. Here it is now. Today I snapped off the growing tips of all of the vigorous shoots, to see if that stimulates fig production. It will be close - I read somewhere that it takes about 100 days for figs to grow and ripen. If it doesn't produce this year, that's OK. The tree will be ready to have a good year, next year. (in case it's noticed, the house behind the fig tree has had some renewal too). My other fig trees all got a big dose of water today. We emptied the duck pond - the fowl water was foul water! So the old water was used to water the fig trees, about ten gallons per tree. I don't think they require watering, but maybe it will help with making a good crop of juicy figs this year.
