Everytime I think of San Deigo, man I just smile!!!! Man you guys in southern Ca, got it made.

I'm sitting in beautiful Charlotte, NC and its 30 degrees outside! It's 53 inside my garage this morning and I see a few more tips swelling on a few more of my trees. Well, I could open the garage door and let the cold air in. If I do, my meyer lemons will drop their leaves. Oh crap! Oh well, in March of 09, it was 90 degrees outside. Maybe my figs know something I don't. I hope so.

Dennis, I can't see putting a tree you want to grow, thrive and produce fruit in with trees you want to stay dormant.  I vote for the lemon to come either inside or into a greenhouse, get it warm and happy and get some fruit.  Then open the garage door so your figs go back to sleep.  March may be a good time to break dormancy in Z8, I don't know.  But Feb certainly isn't   :)

Dennis, to confess my sin, when I first read your very first posting I laughed. "Yeah I wish" I thought but a few minutes ago I went to check on my detached unheated shed that I keep them all and they look awesome! All the scabs from the tips have dropped and the buds look as green and fluffy as ever! The temp here has been in th high 40s to mid 50s during the day and very close to freezing at night with steady light drizzle for the past four days! So all that being said, yes they all look like they re on the verge of breaking dormancy!

I have some 1yr old fig trees in my cold room and several have green buds wanting to push out.  The temp in there is pretty well 40-50F so I am not too worried that they will start growing very fast.
I am making sure they don't dry out and will keep the temp cool by opening a window if required. 
I would think at around 50F they won't grow too much on top but may be growing bigger stronger roots so I don't think it is anything to worry about.

I have a few that broke dormancy last month I believe when we had that warm spell, Maltese falcon, hollier, jack lily and a few others, one or two actually put out a couple inches of growth.

Dennis,
  You jinxed me, man!  Everything looked great a week ago.  I just checked on them and at least 3 are starting to break bud and push out some leaves!
  I have to admit that I was only a little saddened by this.  It will be a pain, but it will certainly cheer me up to bring a couple or 3 trees up to a very sunny south window and let them do what they're inclined to do.  The ones that broke dormancy early last year got through the winter/spring indoors OK, so hopefully this year will be no different.
Cheers,
Jim

Hi needaclone,
How did you do that in Zone6 ? During a warm spell ?

I checked my little potted ones, and they are still sleeping... Great !
That is except the 3 pots I got to the flat, because of their youth  - they were late rooted and I let them sleep one month and up for waking up.
It is my first attempt at winterizing small pots in the basement. I'm hoping I can put them out dormant as of 1st of March (No strong hard frosts after that date here ) and let them wake up outside with their mommas .

jdsfrance,
  I keep my potted trees in my basement over the winter.  It is a part of my basement underneath a room that has 3 outside walls.  It is cooler than the rest of the basement, but I think it is not quite cool enough to keep the figs reliably asleep all winter.  There are just some that want to wake up early.  I also gave my figs a drink of water on January1 (actually, some melting icecubes)...maybe that also contributed to some waking up.
  The Christmas Tree will finally be coming down tomorrow, so that means I can bring some of the figs upstairs.  I kept them inside near a very sunny, very large south-facing window.  When it happened last year, I didn't think it would be enough light, so I used the grow lights in the basement.  But eventually enough of them broke dormancy that I ran out of space and HAD to bring them upstairs.  It seemed to work out OK.
  When I bring them up (tomorrow) I'll let you know which varieties happen to be waking up early -- it may turn out to be some of the "early" varieties.
Jim

Hey all,
  It looks like I have 11 trees that have decided to break bud and start pushing leaves out.  These include:
1 LSU Purple (Also broke bud early in mid Jan 2014
1 LSU Scott's Black. (broke bud very early last year..actually in late December 2013!!!)
2 Black Italian and 1 Olympian (These were small "tissue culture" trees I got in April 2014)
The others that are breaking bud are cuttings that I started last year.  These include:
3 Conadrias (from two different sources)
1 Salce
1 UCR160:50
1 Unk Seattle Purple Amber (Grasa)

I was very interested to notice that the first two trees in particular are "repeat offenders."
Cheers,
Jim

Crap! Now my Paradiso is leafing out in the basement!

Dennis,
 If it makes you feel any better, that LSU Scott's Black that woke up so early was one of my better performers last year! 
Jim

Jim, so was mine. But this year I brought one inside. I want to compare the 2. Meaning I have 3 of them----one sits out every year. It's pretty big.

My Brown Turkey started pushing leaves this past week. Conadria has buds swelling. About normal here in Yuma, AZ. Also these two sit in a corner of a south and west facing block wall so seasons are somewhat enhanced.

China Honey (container)
 


Scott's Black (in ground)
 


It's been warm lately.  Hopefully there are no more frosts this winter.

Pops, Joe -- seems way too early, even for Arizona, huh.
We had a terrible spring in NJ last year, and then I had swarming Ambrosia Beetles through mid May. So some of my early risers were awake and growing inside for literally 4 months or more before getting moved outside.  I hope we don't have a repeat of that this spring...
Cheers,
Jim

My Janice-Kadota seedless pushed out some new growth on the main trunk the other day. I'm going to put it in the ground soon so I rubbed them off.

My second year in-ground LSU Gold has started pushing some new growth; there are also a few brebas that are starting swell up. I'm excited!

Joe--Actually is about right for some varieties here in SW Arizona. Friends who have figs a lot longer than I find all varieties leaved out by mid Feb. I picked the last Brown Turkey about Thanksgiving. It went dormant early Dec. Days here now mid 70's and nights mid-40's lower 50's. different world than yours, eh? sdpops

I'm up in Western WA and bought a dormant Desert King that's 3/4 years old from a guy on CL. I'm renting so all of my figs are in pots and I'm pretty new to it so to prevent transplant/frost worries I put mine in the greenhouse. I put it in there the beginning of December and it broke dormancy a few weeks ago and the brebas are already starting :).       

Something strange is happening to my Celeste....

I brought my potted trees in that were outside, because I started to get worried they wouldn't make it with the night temperatures dropping down to the single digits. This was mid-January.

My Celeste now has 8 figlets that are growing rapidly. I presume that this is breba crop (although I keep reading mixed opinions on whether or not Celestes have a breba crop.)

I'm cautiously optimistic since most of the main crop fell last summer....

 

Now I got Red Italian, Gonsalves, Beall and Paradiso are racing!  I need to check on my 4 big Desert Kings.  I need to post some pics.  Maybe later!  The groundhog said, 6 more weeks of winter but tell that to my figs!

Two of my small potted "Dalmatie" leafed out one medium sized leaf each.
But that's not a surprise as each year I find one small toasted leaf on some buds of my in ground "Dalmatie" .
Since I had 2 lights already turned on for other young fig trees, I brought them in the flat near the lights.
Bad move, I know -since now, until the 15th of May, I can't put them outside - , but ... Well, just for fun .
The initial plan being to put them outside dormant as of 1st of March . Ha yea, I had planned to pot them up when outside ... Screwed for now !

Jdsfrance,
  Look on the bright side:  it will really cheer you up to see those bright green leaves on that fig tree all through the rest of the winter.
Jim

I'm seeing new growth too here in Las Vegas NV. I gave in and started fertilizing yesterday. It will hit almost 80 degrees here next week.