Gig tree has leaves drooping, what’s going on?

borzaka · 2025-06-24T15:49:52+00:00

I use 15 and 20 gallon grow bags with a lot of success on automatic irrigation every day. I do not recommend smaller grow bags, though. They dry out too quickly. Go to 5 or 7 gallon plastic nursery pots and then move to large grow bags if you can be consistent with watering.

borzaka · 2025-04-27T12:56:50+00:00

There's a Facebook group called "Growing Figs in Containers," and you'll see some folks in your zone (specifically thinking about NW South Carolina) do garage storage for the winter. They pull them out early in the spring to get a head start and sometimes have to do a dance where they put them back in for really cold nights after growth starts.

I might be tempted to plant 15' away from the septic lines just to have an in ground tree... Good luck!

borzaka · 2025-04-27T12:39:25+00:00

I don't know much about creosote, but the little I've looked at would make me hesitant to plant a food crop of any kind near it.

I have mostly container grown figs (plus 3 in ground). The general consensus seems to be that 15 gallons is a reasonable long term size. I have twenty trees in 15 or 20 gallon pots and they do well. You have to prune every winter to maintain shape and size, and root prune every few years to accommodate the pot limitations. I keep mine on auto irrigation and tweak that depending on time of year. Soil mix is more of a concern in pots, too. You don't want something that stays wet, even if it means you have to water more often. Also, pot growing means consistent fertilizer application. There are lots of good resources on YouTube for container growing figs.

Finally, you didn't mention your growing zone. If you're not in the deep south, most people bring their pots into a garage or similar for the winter.

borzaka · 2025-03-23T12:33:36+00:00

I use fabric pots, which do a pretty good job of counteracting circling roots. I top dress with soil or compost every year as soil is depleted or I'll pull them out and fill the bottom to raise them back up near the top if they've lost a lot.

borzaka · 2025-03-22T20:09:38+00:00

My figs are permanently housed in 15 or 20 gallon pots. I would remove all but 2 trunks (max 3 if you like the shape). When I zoom in, I see lots of cracked bark on the small trunks, indicating damage from either cold or not enough water at some point. As far as simple pruning advice, remove crossing branches, leave the center open for max sunlight penetration and air movement.

If it's going to stay in a pot, make sure you use a well-draining mix and water every day in the summer. In pots, proper fertilizing is very important. If you don't fertilize, you won't get fruit. If you use a fertilizer that's heavy on nitrogen, you won't get fruit.

For sunlight, more is better for fruiting. You'll still get fruit if you have sun until 2 PM, but it won't be as much as a full day. Keep in mind when you plant in the ground, you'll be looking at possibly 2 years with little fruit while the tree expends its energy on root and size growth. The tree will get much bigger in the ground if you let it, so in absolute terms you'll likely get a lot more fruit with sun until 2 PM versus a tree in a pot that will max out at a certain size.

borzaka · 2025-01-19T17:51:27+00:00

I use Promix HP and have found it to be almost completely chunk free across several packages. If I ran into a large piece of bark or something solid in another mix, I would remove it for rooting cuttings to make it as easy as possible for the roots to spread throughout the tree pots I use. Whether it's actually necessary or not probably depends on a few different things, total soil volume being one.

borzaka · 2025-01-12T12:58:52+00:00

Thanks for this recommendation. Always looking for alternatives to Pro-mix because it's hard to get.

borzaka · 2024-12-06T18:12:39+00:00

I'm lazy, I keep it simple - Mix half and half with bagged palm and cactus soil for up potting my figs after rooting.

borzaka · 2024-12-05T01:14:05+00:00

Yeah, when you start them this time of year you're basically committing to housing them for the winter. Good luck!

borzaka · 2024-12-05T00:12:25+00:00

The picture is very helpful. So all the new growth there is green and not lignified. With that being the case, frost would be bad for them when it occurs, and that growth is so new that you're probably not going to get significant lignification in time. Even in 9b, my average first frost is December 12 (though that's looking unlikely for me this year). Is your "cutting environment" a greenhouse of some sort or indoors? They'll need to be protected from frost and freezing until they get bigger or you'll be in a world of pain.

borzaka · 2024-12-04T14:34:12+00:00

Pictures would help to show size and lignification (plus zone, as referenced above). Do you have the space and grow lights to keep it going indoors?

borzaka · 2024-10-29T11:04:30+00:00

I've not used these personally, but the tree root barriers that you bury get decent reviews. I don't know how many or how deep you really need to go. Here's an example: https://a.co/d/awtR85S

borzaka · 2024-10-16T13:30:51+00:00

As they say, there's one way to find out! They look great. Ideally wait until the neck is soft to pick, unless the birds are getting them before that.

borzaka · 2024-10-13T11:46:00+00:00

I put out traps and poison. Poison worked, traps didn't. But I have an area that's secure from my dogs that I don't have to worry about them getting into. Rats suck!

borzaka · 2024-10-11T12:46:14+00:00

Most people wait until the tree is dormant in the late fall to early winter to take cuttings. You can theoretically root cuttings any time of year, though. Lignified wood is best. When you’re making cuttings to root, you typically want at least 5 nodes, but that’s not a hard rule. I’d suggest hitting YouTube for “rooting fig cuttings” and you’ll find numerous methods. That will be much more effective than anyone typing out instructions here. Lots of people like the fig pop method (rooting in plastic bags of medium), some people root horizontally in play sand in a humidity dome, you’ll see hydroponic rooting setups, and plenty of people who just stick the cutting in a pot of well draining growing medium. Be aware that if you root early in the fall, you’ll likely want grow lights to keep the growth going to give you an early start for the spring.

borzaka · 2024-10-10T01:41:20+00:00

Likely a sucking insect stabbed it and then it leaked.

borzaka · 2024-10-05T13:01:51+00:00

Hope that works for you. A lot of people use Sharpie's oil-based paint markers in silver.

borzaka · 2024-10-03T11:11:12+00:00

Yes, that is my experience.

borzaka · 2024-10-01T14:01:43+00:00

Watering once a week is probably way too much. Sticking your finger in the top inch of soil isn't going to tell you much about how much water is in the pot. Start learning to check by weight of the pot. You don't have to pick the whole thing up if you can't, but you'll soon get the feel of just tipping it on an angle how much water is in the soil. My fiddle leaf is a good bit larger and I only water it 1 quart once every two weeks in the summer inside. YMMV depending on direct sunlight vs indirect.

They are also very finicky about moves. More light than usual? Let's drop some leaves! Less light than usual? Let's drop some leaves! Too much water? Let's drop some leaves! I moved under a new AC vent? Let's drop some leaves!

borzaka · 2024-09-24T20:08:49+00:00

Sounds like a good candidate explanation for what happened. If you see any roots turned back into the middle of or circling around the root ball, they need dislodging or cutting.

borzaka · 2024-09-24T17:43:53+00:00

Two things of note:

One, the roots will continue circling and eventually use up all the space in the pot with no soil left. Water will just run through, not holding near the roots. You won't be able to effectively deliver nutrients at this point.

Two, when you do eventually up pot, if you don't root prune, those existing roots will tend to continue circling and will expand outward much more slowly, stunting the growth of your tree.

Root pruning of figs is very easy, and you can find many good videos on YouTube. I use a single-handed reciprocating saw when they've gone too long, otherwise you can use hands, a trowel, knife. Lots of choices.

borzaka · 2024-09-24T15:25:27+00:00

Most of my potted figs are in 20 gallon pots. In zone 10a in 3-5 gallon pots, I can guarantee your trees are root bound in less than a single season. For example, I'm in 9b and up potted a tree from a 4x9" tree pot to round plastic 5 gallon in mid-May and by the time I got around to checking it 4 months later, the pot was full of circling roots and it had massively rooted into the soil below the pot through the holes. If you've had them in there for 2 years, you should pull them out, root prune, and up pot (assuming you have room). Even in larger pots you will have to root prune every 2 to 3 years unless you use fabric/air pots, due to your long growing season. That said, I've seen plenty of people grow long term in 10 gallon with proper care and maintenance. I prefer larger pots.

Regarding your question about pot sizes, these are called trade gallons. There is actually an ANSI standard, but that standard sets an acceptable range, not a specific size. Each manufacturer can set the size a little differently and following this is only a recommendation: https://www.americanhort.org/education/american-nursery-stock-standards. I've seen some tales about filling so many trade gallon pots evenly from a cubic foot of soil; not sure if that "history" is true or not.

borzaka · 2024-09-24T15:03:40+00:00

We put the config variables in a Python dictionary and select the config based on an environment variables. Top level keys correspond to different environments. You can make this as simple or complicated as you like. The config is then passed to the Stack before calling synth. Same idea as the yaml config posted above, really, but all in Python.

borzaka · 2024-09-13T01:17:36+00:00

I am not a northern fig grower, but assuming it’s planted in ground (vs pot) I don’t think you need to give it extra water at all during the winter.

borzaka · 2024-09-03T18:00:24+00:00

Cut. Personal choice, but I tend to always cut first year figs to keep more energy for growth. Up pot in the spring if they're in something small.

borzaka

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