Hello everybody. I live in NJ (Zone 7) and am relatively new to fig growing. I received my first fig tree as a gift 2 years ago, then hastily planted it in the ground early last spring (2014). After this brutally cold winter we had, my tree took a little damage when ice formed on top of the fig tree wrap and sunk down onto the tree. I pulled it out of the ground and put it back in the planter, and the good news is that it's not dead, but it did put out some odd shaped leaves, and the top half doesn't seem dead because it has sap and I did the nick test on the bark, but it hasn't sprouted at all. I attached a few photos, and I'm interested to hear your thoughts/advice on how to proceed. Also, I purchased a small fig plant, which I also attached a picture of (chicago hardy). I was wondering why 2 of the leaves have those spots on them.    
   

Welcome to the forum Njfigger... The pros will weight in and give you some feedback on your issue.

Thanks Sal. I've been wanting to join a fig forum for some time now, so I've been lurking around to see which one has the best info. It seems like there is a ton of helpful and knowledgeable people on here who post regularly. Looking forward to learning and contributing as much as I can.

Welcome to the forum.  I don't think any of us are pros (well, maybe a couple) but it seems unlikely that the upper few inches of the main trunk is still alive if nothing has sprouted from it yet.  The bark looks dead.  I would prune it down to the nearest live shoot.  Also you should thin out the suckers.  Most growers maintain their container trees as a single trunk.  If you plan on keeping it in a container then you might to eliminate all shoots except for one, probably the one coming out of the original trunk.  Definitely reduce down to 3 trunks or less.  The leaves seem fine to me.  Any idea what variety you have.

It looks like the HC had some insect or sun damage early on but is fine now.

Thanks Rewton. I have no idea what variety this tree is, as it was a gift. Still haven't gotten any fruit from it either. One popped early this spring, then just withered up and fell off. When should I cut the tree back?

You can prune it anytime.  Now that I look at the photo more closely what I would probably do is chose three shoots that come off of the main trunk (protruding in different directions, of course) and eliminate all of the others.  You can then decide later whether to reduce down to one shoot or leave all three.  If you search for "pruning" on the forum you will find a wealth of information about various ways to prune figs.

Thank you, thats what I'll do. I wish my tree was making as many figs as it is leaves and branches lol, but I know that's where the pruning comes into play. I'm going to research it

Hi.  Welcome to the forum njfigger.

Your tree definitely wants to live.  Do a prune job as suggested and you should be okay.  Protect it a little better this winter.

The odd-shaped leaves are FMV (Fig Mosaic Virus).  Most fig trees have FMV and will show signs of it when stressed.  Do a search on the forum for FMV, tons written about it.

It looks like something was sprayed on your HC and it caused the spots.  Check out this thread.

That makes perfect sense about the HC, probably something the lanscaper sprayed. As for the other one, definitely going to prune it, just doing some research on past threads now so I don't overdo it. This winter it will be wheeled into the garage like it was the first year. Last year I thought I did a great job wrapping it. I put 4 metal stakes around it, then chicken wire around metal stakes, then filled the chicken wire with hay, wrapped it all in burlap, then final cover with a 4 mil thick plastic staked to the ground. Ice formed on top of the plastic and pulled the stakes out of the ground and the top sank in. Im talking about a block of ice so heavy I couldn't lift it out of the enclosure I made. It was like that for at least a couple of weeks. Even though I'd look out the window every day at the enclosed fig, you couldn't tell what happened from a distance. It wasn't until I trudged into the backyard with my snowboots for something else that I saw what happened to my tree