Spring has sprung, so I began cutting the dead wood off my favorite tree today.  My Unknown Havasu fig...6 feet tall last year, first year in ground, with limbs 1 1/2 inches thick.   (It is the tree in my avitar and profile pics).

Highs were in the low 80's today, but lows tonight are supposed to be in the mid 40's again.  We had a lot of freezing temps this winter, often followed by 50 and 60 f  degree days.  One night our temps dropped to 12 f.    Additionally, our humidity is normally in the 20's and 30's or lower.  Yesterday it was in the single digets all day.   So I have been doing the fig shuffle, the tomato starts shuffle, and the mullberry and other cuttings shuffle in and out of my garage on a nearly daily basis.

But imagine my suprise as I worked my way down the first limb today pruning off dead wood.   Nothing but dead wood.  Same thing for the entire tree.  I am left with a little 3 inch stump which may or may not still be viable.  Fortunately it was heavily mulched so the the roots were protected.   Interestingly enough, there is a short pencil thick limb coming up from from under the mulch at the base which has a little leaf on it, so the tree is not lost.

Now for the questions.

For those of you that wrap and/or cover your trees...do you  uncover them on warm sunny winter days, then recover them when it gets cold?   I would have had to have done this twenty or thirty times per tree.  Do-able for one or two...but not for fifteen or twenty.

Should I have waited to cut dead limbs untill later in the season?  I cut till I observed moist (but still dead looking) wood.   Maybe I cut to far?

This is my favorite tree.   My plan for the future is to cut it way back like the pics in the Brazilian orchard that Grassa posted last Fall (thankyou Grassa), wrap and it and cover it every year.    But if I do this...at what point should I be prepared to unwrap it when temps warm up in the winter?   Is it ok to keep them wrapped even when things warm up for several days in...say...December?

I know this is a long post, but I would greatly appreciate opinions and advice from those of you with knowledge or experience growing figs outdoors in cold and arid climates.

I'm really happy the tree is not lost.  I don't cut dead wood until the tree is well leafed out.  What did you wrap it in?  Was this winter different than others?  Did any of the buds on the dead wood look like they broke dormancy?  No bark damage?

I didn't wrap it.  Or cover it.   We only had a few nights below 28 degrees, and only the one night when it got real cold.   I mean....I am in zone 8.   And this was our second winter here.   It was colder than the averages, but all in all...not really all that cold.  (Or so I thought).

No buds, except for the one little leaf on that one skinny little branch.  Kinda suprised me how the one skinny little branch survived yet the wood in the thick branches was dry and dead.  I did have some bark damage.

Perhaps I should have waited to cut it back.  This is my fifth year with figs, and three of those were at Lake Havasu where temps just barely dipped below freezing for one or two nights.

I have another one in a pot, which will be going into the ground soon as well.   Only....I don't want to repeat this next year.  So maybe it will be going into a bigger pot instead. 

Lol- sounds like me. No cover, no mulch, no nothing----> Panache. I tried to kill it. Looks like there is green life after i scrached it. Hasn't woken up yet... We shall see

It has been my experience that the later a tree grows into the season the less hardy it is. The mature trees around here have a single growth spurt and then spend their energy ripening figs, they are hardy. My trees want to grow through September and they are not really... I am not sure how to get my trees to that point but know it is what I need to do.

Any thoughts on what I should do with the small stump above  the one little live branchlet? 

Cover it? 
Keep it damp? 
Put mulch over it? 
Leave it exposed?   

It's March.  Are you likely to get more nights under 30?  if so I'd cover it with mulch but not cut it yet.  I would want to see if a miracle happens.  Then wait till growth gets going strongly and cut back to the first node that isn't shriveled.

Jennifer my figs don't wake up till late May and I'm in Zone 6.

I might have been a little hasty cutting it back.  Most of my fig trees are just begining to show some bud swelling.

We have had  no freezing temps for the past couple of weeks.   Only...we live just a few miles from a 7900 ft mountain peak.   We often get a late cold "suprise" off the mountain in spring here.   It can come as late as mid April.

For what it's worth I un wrapped my trees a couple weeks ago and we have had -15 Celsius windchill since then a couple times, but no more damage than what was there before, I always wait to prune them until the trees have started growing, sometimes I'm surprised, not too often but once in awhile.

Hey Dave, I would leave it be for now. If it has life in it, it'll take off when it warms up. You stated earlier, this is the first year in the ground. Maybe half way thru your season, start pinching. It will harden the wood faster. Would bet it will not do it again. That's not suppose to be a problem in AZ.


luke

Dave,

That is too bad that your tree died back.  

You know, I moved here in 2010.  I'm in the suburbs of Phoenix.  My first winter here I didn't know what to expect.  I thought the fig trees would just keep growing right through the winter.  I fertilized in the fall when the temps dropped below 100.  I watered like crazy.  The trees grew real nice... until we got temps that dropped below freezing for a couple of nights in December and January.  The trees died back.  I realized that I made a mistake.  Arizona is very nice for figs... but it isn't Hawaii.

Now I focus on hardening off the trees in the fall.  I stop watering them in the fall.  No fertilizer after the summer.  You can force them into dormancy that way.  Dormant fig wood is pretty cold hardy, at least to the teens and even the to single digits for some varieties.  That is the way to go in my opinion.

Since you are in a colder climate than me I think that hardening off the trees will be very important for you.  You may find that even with doing that some varieties will still get die back in cold winters where you live.  But most of them should be ok.

Also some varieties take longer to come out of dormancy in the spring.  Hardy Chicago does that in my yard.

I think your tree will come back from the roots.  Maybe just think about really preparing it for next winter by making sure you harden it off in the fall.

I think you are right Joe.   I'll be working at hardening them off as the summer winds down this year.

It's hard for me to think temps get down below freezing in AZ! You guys are in zone 8 like me but your summers are crazy hot! Your weather must crazy for figs like mine. But here...we usually get too much rain in the summer. With legs and fingers crossed, I am hoping we have little rain this year.

You and me both Dennis.

Arizona is a very diverse state.   We have a ski resort in Flagstaff, complete with a pine forest.  I happen to live between Flagstaff and Phoenix, in a river valley at the base of a 7900 foot mountain.   We get weather off that mountain in the summer in the form of rain and sometimes even hailstorms.   Sometimes over an inch within just an hour or two.  Last summer my back yard became a creek in one such storm with a small stream running through it.   I did some dirtwork soon afterwards, channeling the once or twice a year creek further away from the house and my growing areas. Being in the desert means low humidity for much of the year.  Coupled with wind, that can be devestating to fig trees and other plants.

Right now we are experiencing warm weather, but it is forcast to gradually cool over the next 4 days with night time temps possibly dipping into the upper 30's.

Our last frost can occur as late as mid April.

I am still learning how to grow and protect stuff here.  It's  a real challenge.

I used to have a good friend who lived right near you in Cottonwood. Beautiful, interesting country, but more extreme weather than most people might think.

I have no suggestions, but good luck with your figs.

I believe we should not fertilize after the end of June and reduce water (irrigation) by September or according to our zone, so the trees stop growing and have some time to harden. This prepares them for the winter and might make the difference between survival or loosing a tree.
I would leave the tree alone: many fig tree die back but regrow and sometimes produce a crop the first year on the new shoots.