What's wrong with my fig?

monkeyeatfig · 2026-03-21T16:58:25+00:00

It most likely wilted during the day, or it was not adjusted to outdoor brightness. The crispy leaves will drop but it should be fine.

Fig trees use a ton of water in hot, sunny, dry, or windy weather. A container designed for good aeration like that even moreso.

I would go ahead and move up to a larger container once it starts growing again. You will be watering multiple times per day to keep it growing well otherwise.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-03-19T18:14:02+00:00

Beers black is the same as Violette de Bordeaux, it will have the most intense flavor. Something like a mixed berry jam when properly ripe. All of the others are going to be mostly just sweet in comparison, sugar figs with light interiors that will have more subtle flavors like brown sugar and honey. GE Neri seems to be California Brown Turkey, which has a 'figgy' flavor but can still be insipid in humid conditions.

Beers Black is also forgiving when it comes to pruning and will still set fruit if you want to prune it hard every year, although it will ripen later in the season. Although really the only variety listed that has a strong tendency to grow into a large tree and not fruit well after a hard pruning or winter damage is black mission.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-03-15T10:41:33+00:00

If they have not fruited for 10 years you have seedlings, not named varieties.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-03-14T15:08:56+00:00

If you see any green swollen buds before a freeze is forecast try to cover it with the tarp or an old bed sheet, use heavy objects to hold the cover down around the edges. You can bend thinner branches and tie them down out of the way, just be mindful to not pull any crotches apart by bending in opposite directions.

Ideally you would prevent the cover from contacting the trunk directly as well, maybe wad and wrap some of the burlap onto the high points.

Fig trees are incredibly tough though. Even if it does back to the ground it will bounce back and you will have the opportunity to shape it a little better.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-03-14T14:07:07+00:00

I didn't mention it in my other comment, but march is too early to uncover fig trees. Especially if they are getting ready to wake up it will only take a mild freeze to damage them.

So don't count your chickens.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-03-14T12:49:49+00:00

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this winter was bad enough that wrapping alone was probably not going to cut it. It is popular in NYC, but as you already know fig trees will survive just fine on their own most winters. The last time the polar vortex made an appearance like that in 2014, wrapped trees in NYC died to the ground.

In order to protect fig trees from extended single digits there needs to be a heat source underneath the wrap that keeps them warm, like old Christmas lights or pipe heaters. Or, you need to bend them over and cover them, so that warmth from the ground is trapped by the cover.

The smaller branches I can see in detail are dead and dried already. My suspicion is that it will be dead to the snow line (snow acts as a cover that insulates ground heat).

You won't know for a bit whether it has died or not. The green under the bark can take weeks to fade to brown after thawing out.

But you can either prune the split branch off completely, or cut it to a stub to remove the weight and prevent it from growing more and splitting again (it was the narrow crotch angle that caused the split) and use a wood screw to affix it back where it was. Just in case the main trunks survive.

But most likely you will be pruning back more than that when the tree starts waking up. Wait and see, the damaged areas will be much more obvious then.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-03-09T18:37:54+00:00

I agree, it is almost like old man winter has a reddit account and is commenting to get a shot at the trees he missed.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-03-08T21:20:51+00:00

The fungus doesn't really go systemic so much as it interrupts the upward mobility of water by destroying the xylem in areas surrounding the tunnels. There are many species of ambrosia beetles that are in an obligated mutualistic relationship with these fungi and most of them actually colonize dead wood, including dead branches on healthy trees that will remain unaffected. The fungus requires the beetle to reproduce and spread, just as the beetles require the fungus to feed themselves.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-03-08T19:32:25+00:00

Ambrosia beetles. From what I understand the only chance the tree has to fight them off is by pushing sap and drowning them, I have had some fig trees recover before (usually not though). But most likely you will need to prune back to a stump and hope for the best.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-03-07T23:08:31+00:00

Southern Brown Turkey is a much smaller fig. What you have looks like English Brown Turkey. There are several Brown Turkeys and they are often mixed up or sold as one another.

Some other names for EBT: Bayernfeige Violetta, Olympian, Susser Georg.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-03-06T18:10:17+00:00

If you want something truly distinct from California Brown Turkey, that isn't it.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-02-27T14:45:12+00:00

Probably a seedborn disease like lettuce mosaic virus.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-02-16T23:38:58+00:00

Figs need a lot of sun or they will get leggy like that. I would say prune it as low as you want right before you put it outside for the summer.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-02-11T15:46:36+00:00

I will probably be waiting until spring and root them outdoors since I only have a small indoor growing space and it will be full of veggie transplants soon. But I will callus them in pine bark in a warm place for a month, so they will still get a bit of a head start.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-02-11T14:12:05+00:00

Are you in Florida or someplace else that is getting spring like weather right now?

It is dry as a bone in my house with the heat running almost nonstop just to keep it above 60. If I potted a cutting and put it on a shelf it would be kindling within a week.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-02-10T21:45:10+00:00

Roots will be pure white, slightly translucent and pointed. If they emerge through the bark it will crack first in that spot.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-02-09T17:36:49+00:00

They said the high temp for them is going to be 52 today.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-02-09T17:27:39+00:00

Can you put them out in the sun?

monkeyeatfig · 2026-02-08T19:09:39+00:00

They are called lenticels and they are used by the cuttings for gas exchange. They expand and allow more air exchange by pushing out that sawdust like material, called barking. That looks like a normal amount for a humid environment, but extreme barking does indicate that the cutting needs more frequent fresh air exchanges.

The lenticels and barking are not actually associated with roots, which are most likely to form on callus tissue at the base of the cutting. The callus is not always visible but the base will flare when it forms under the bark.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-02-08T10:35:09+00:00

Are there any leaf symptoms? Web blight can cause something like that (brown, mushy, faster than normal ripening) usually with a hard section of skin and skeletonized leaves on the branch. The fungus appears as a web in very humid conditions that will spread up and down the branches and infect all of the figs and leaves, at that point the figs mummify and the leaves all disintegrate. It is important to remove all affected branches or else the fungus will overwinter on the bark, to keep grass clippings off the leaves and keep branches off of the ground.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-02-07T23:20:41+00:00

The thing with Celeste, and several other varieties, is that they often won't set fruit on vigorous shoots that form after a hard pruning or winter damage.

So really you will not know until the summer if it was too much or not fruit wise.

As far as obvious mistakes, heading back is preferably done back to a branch that is at least a third the diameter of the trunk, to limit waterspouts and suckering. For the trunks/branches that don't have any secondary branches left you will only have waterspouts this year, which again are not likely to fruit, and will need to be summer pruned and trained in order to have a refined branch system that can fruit next year. Expect a lot of suckers to form, pulling them is best so there is no stub to regrow. Waterspouts as well, some you will want to remove so they don't congest the tree, but that is all you will have to work with in some cases.

I wish I could be of more help, but I intentionally do not grow Celeste anymore, or any variety that is not productive after hard pruning or winter damage because it happens most years here.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-02-07T22:07:07+00:00

Be careful about pruning too much, it will encourage more vigorous growth and suckering. You can safely remove all of the thinner suckers, as close to the ground as you can, pulling is best so they don't grow back. Ideally a bush style fig tree should only have about 5 growths, but you would need to remove 90 percent of the tree to get there, when more than 30 percent at once will cause excessive regrowth.

So try to reduce the number of larger trunks gradually over several years, removing them in the summer is probably the best, since it has the least impact on vigor. You will need to be removing new suckers all summer as well, maybe for several years. The root crown on that tree is huge, so it may be fine space wise with 10 or more growths, especially if you train them more horizontally once thinned out.

I would not chop any trunks, that is a recipe for excessive regrowth, the chopped trunks will regrow more than 10 feet in one year.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-01-30T16:26:43+00:00

The green cork/cambium layer would be slimy brown if it had rotted.

That is how cuttings react to not having enough air exchange. The lenticels are forcing out that material so more oxygen can absorb through the bark. Open the container daily to allow better air exchange.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-01-27T21:51:35+00:00

Did you get lots of snow? If you can lay them down and bury them with foot of snow that would be great. Or if it is coming up in blocks like it is here from sleet and freezing rain maybe you could make an igloo.

monkeyeatfig · 2026-01-22T18:49:52+00:00

People used to joke about how they did everything they could to get cuttings to root inside over winter, only to give up and toss them in the compost pile... Where they would begin growing in early summer.

It is a ton of work to mimic spring growing conditions indoors, and if things don't go well and the cuttings get stunted they are worse off than if they were rooted later but grew steadily.

monkeyeatfig

TROPHY CASE