My fig trees died over the winter

GroupDIY Audio Forum

Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Consul

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 3, 2004
Messages
1,653
Location
Port Huron, Michigan, USA
Blargh. And they were potted, and brought inside to weather the winter, to boot. They survived one winter just fine that way.

I'm also having bad luck with basil, last year and this.
 
> My fig trees died over the winter

Well, hell. I'm in a much balmier clime than Michigan and it is well known here you have to be an Old Italian with a whole roll of tarpaper to grow fig trees. We mulch and wrap with sheets and burlap, top with a metal bucket (plastic seems toxic to figs), and this winter we lost most of the main root/trunk, it is hanging-on by two branches which seem to have rooted where they touch dirt.

> brought inside to weather the winter

Ah. Well, our midget Orange Tree comes in every winter, and this winter on the sun-porch with a heat-pad under the pot. This thing has limped along since the early 1970s. But this winter it seems to have died-back to a few inches up from the pot. All the leaves fell off, but a few shoots are coming out.... we shall see.

The orange bore bitter fruit once, not in many years. The fig usually sets some green pods the size of a #47 lamp, which fall off.

The Hardy Kiwi just won't quit growing, has to be whacked-back almost weekly in the summer, but has never set fruit.

We have a tame Locust Tree which grew-up like an Atlas rocket, but already has a rot-spot on the base which dooms it. Meanwhile back at the fence we took-out an ill pine and all the little wild locust-weeds around it, and the weeds grew-up 13 feet in 2 years. Can't eat it, but if you can let it grow 50-100 years and find a saw which will cut it (green! seasoned Locust is almost saw/drill-proof) you have fine foundation logs.

Grass has gone nuts. If I didn't mow it yesterday, it needs it again already. Meanwhile my neighbor has (finally) done something about his dandelion farm (I didn't know you could buy Arsenic in a bottle with 2,4D) and we may really have "a lawn" this year.
 
Mine were the Chicago Hardy cultivar, which are able to take temperatures down to 30F, which it most certainly did not get down to in my basement. They're also supposed to be able to survive outside in the ground in this zone if wrapped and warmed with some lye. Maybe potting was the wrong approach.
 
[quote author="Consul"]They're also supposed to be able to survive... ....if wrapped up and warmed with some lye.[/quote]
Karl Rove is trying this approach on the Neocons as we speak.

He's using a different spelling for "lye" of course, but the approach is the same
 
One thing to note: plants are often very sensitive to air circulation and light cycling.

There's a fig tree outside in the apartment complex here. It gets chopped back every year to what I would think near death. It comes back with a vengeance, dropping slippery fruit on the walk and giving management headaches.
 
Considering some people successfully bury their fig trees completely to winter them over in these northern zones, I still think my approach should've worked fine. In fact, for one winter, it did. It was the second winter that was the problem. I'm leaning towards the idea that they died from other causes.
 
:sad:

Sympathies - Basil is a complete bastard to grow in Yorkshire too, even with a greenhouse.

I recommend parsnips!
 
If you take them inside they should be in a cool room and watered only once a month or so. If it's too warm or they get too much water they won't sleep through winter.
 
> able to take temperatures down to 30F, which it most certainly did not get down to in my basement

Agree: basement under living space should not be frosty; or else you'd know something was wrong (extended power outage etc).

As bcarso says, maybe it didn't like the dark. However I think I've heard a tale of such a plant coming back from extended dungeon storage. (Or was that Mom's Jade Plant?)

As filterstein sez: too much or too little water will upset the plant. In this clime dry-out is a real risk. And water while dark and supposedly dormant may just rot it. Or trigger growth reflex it can't satisfy in the gloom. (However since the leaves fell off in October, what difference can light make until late May and leaf-open time?)

I've seen it done around NYC. We used to have a lot of off-the-boat Italians who had to have their fig trees. One technique uses lots of tarpaper. As you say, buried in dirt is another technique. This may be as much moisture control as temperature control. Not too wet and not too dry. A northern basement may run too-dry in winter.

> It gets chopped back every year to what I would think near death.

There is as much plant below the ground as above it. There is no vital organ.

We recently moved a mature Kiwi, forgot to rent a backhoe, and wound up losing maybe 3/4 of the total root-system. The boss was too chicken to do a corresponding trim on the top. Here's this 10-foot top on about a foot of root. Early results say it is entirely happy: zero leaf-droop, no yellowing. Helps that we moved it just before a rainy week, so the root stayed wet enough that slight rootlet growth was ample for water balance, and no sun-burn while that growth was happening.

In Germany and England, small-wood is made by "coppice". You cut down a big live oak or beech tree. In a few years many shoots come up. First-year thinning can be used for lath. 10 year old coppice makes good studs. Gnarly shoots are trimmed at any time and dried for firewood. Some coppice farms have re-grown many dozen times over several centuries. (Pine does not coppice.)

I have a Holly which wants to coppice. It was taller than the second floor and very alive when we took it down to the ground. Every year that live root sends up shoots. We have to poison the monster or it will push-up the drive, the walk, and the shed. It's just 30 inches from the house; if this were a block foundation it probably would have pushed-in a long time ago, but this is boulders which apparently can resist big holly roots.
 
Back
Top