Hey guys, I've had my large fig in a 25 gal , plastic, dark brown pot for a 3 years...time to root prune and consider an even larger pot. I've had problems with roots overheating, but no other noticeable issues (other than it is certainly a bit root bound).

What are your fav large pots for the hot southern sun? Fabric? Via grow bags? A plastic pot of some kind? I'm concerned some of the aforementioned pots wouldn't be appropriate in a 30, 35gal, or larger size...are bags plastic or fabric strong enough for a huge tree?

Thanks so much for your time!

If you really want to go bonkers you could use a 275-330 gallon IBC tank cut in half.  That would give you two fairly sturdy 150 gallon 'pots' that would look like these:

 

James, Wow! How do you root prune?:)

About the overheating problem. Try to allow the roots to go into the ground through the bottom. It will help.

Also, based on observation, a wooden container might not heat up like plastic. This one came to me from a nursery when I bought a different tree. It is about 20 gallon and the tree has been in there and happy for about 8 years.
It yields about a couple of dozen figs + per season without any major maintenance. At some point I would have to change the container as the wood would eventually rot.

Greenfin, my husband would laugh and say "I'm not moving that ;)!" He is already incredibly sweet for being cool with me filling the window sills, driveway, and garage with figs...I don't want to push my luck, lol!

I wouldn't place a container fig in anything larger than 27 g. If you are using self watering pots which I do. What I do is reuse the exact same 27g half plastic barrel. Just pull the tree out. Remove 25% of the root ball. Repot the tree with new soil and pot the tree up 3 inches above the rim of the pot. Why? Because the tree will settle down 3 inches in a few weeks.

Here are a few of my 27g trees freshly potted up. This one is one of my best, Smith.

I am under orders to not get more fig trees .....I only have 6 small trees .   .....ok I ordered 5 more for spring delivery ... yikes

I plan on going up to 10gl Sip type planters from Wal-Mart .  and just keep them pruned small and root prune .  every cpl years .

I can't lug anything bigger down to the basement .

IF I had a big barn I would do half barrels like Dennis .

Austin,
This is the first year where I used my entire garage for figs. Besides, my basement, my 8x10 greenhouse, my 12x20 greenhouse and my shed. However, many are outside unprotected.

Those containers in James' post will be great for figs. BUT....I use pure mushroom compost for my figs and there will be no way to lift a pot that size plus water in the bottom. The 27g barrels that I use, hold 5 gallons of water. I use a 600lb dolly to move my trees around.

Dennis a few yrs ago you were planting a lot of figs on a steep bank behind house . how did that turn out ?

I'm a huge fan of root pouches. I live in a cooler environment though. They need to be watered a lot, but roots are cool for sure, and of course fabric air prunes the roots. From what I understand a 20 gallon root pouch is like a 40 gallon hard pot because of air pruning.  They go up to 100 gallon, and the prices are great! A 100 gallon root pouch is $19.50.  A 35 gallon is 12 bucks. They last about 4-5 years.

From following dennis as well as others. Large sip pots cannot be beat. Even the cheap sip pots with the fill hoke on the bottom side of pot works incredible. I plants one of my slow growing pobs figs in one and 2 months later it was huge and need to up pot. It was,a 10 gallen pot.

Dennis, are the inserted white tubes for feeding? How do you use them? 

The white tube is used for watering.

Thanks Alan! I have a lot of those pots still. Figs grow very fast when fed from the bottom.

I get small sips from Dollar General and up to 10gl from wal-mart

I noticed that after two years, my figs outgrew their large Walmart containers and did not perform as well as the previous year. I'm thinking that it might have something to do with being root bound due to super fast growth.

I'm moving some to the HC25 containers this year.

http://www.amleo.com/haviland-plastics-hpp-large-blow-molded-nursery-containers/p/VP-HC/

Does this container need to be moved or does it stay in place? I'm thinking custom made cedar box. With or without rollers on the bottom. You can also use recycled pallets.

I've had good luck with these 1/2 whiskey barrels. Looks good too. You do have to root prune every few years

I use the same, but wine barrels.  They are about 30 gallons for the half barrel.

Same here Dan.  I have 10....I think!  All came from Jack Daniels.  But this year the metal bands started rusting and breaking.  So, a few months ago, I started removing a few trees out---switching to SWPs.  But I love those barrels!!!

Dennis, how many years use did you get from the barrels before they started becoming unusable?

About 5 years.  I've had mine 5 years and the bands on the bottom are popping.

Aaron, I'm thinking about going the same direction eventually with my favorite trees, custom built large wooden pots. I would think though, that similar to the whiskey barrel, 5 years is about all one would get out of them but you could still build those cheaper than buying whiskey barrels. Around here 1/2 barrels are never on sale.

Whiskey barrel in my area come from Lowe's home improvement and Tractor Supply Co.  They're around $29.99.  But if you're patient they will mark them down to $19.99.  Or you can do what I do now and get some thick plastic 55g barrel with the 2 screw top for $10 bucks each.....cut it in half and you got yourself a cheap 27g planter for 5 bucks!  And the plastic barrels last a life time.  Its all good!

Thanks for all the advice and for sharing tour sources! It looks like the best answer may be to just experiment with some of these different options and see what works best here/is most convenient.

Hi Dennis,  how deep a reservoir do you make in your 27g SIPs?

Hi BrightGreen, did you get to try any of the options, did it work for you?