It's been a while since I posted any fig pics, so thought I'd provide an update.

First, this is my Black Mission that is about 4 years old now and still hasn't produced a single fig.  It appears incredibly healthy and when I researched possible causes the only one that I thought MAY apply to my situation was too much Nitrogen and the recommended cure was adding Phosphorous to offset the Nitrogen.  So, a few weeks ago, I scraped a healthy dose of bone meal into the soil and hopefully I'll see some figs from her soon, else she'll be the first to be replaced as I make room for all the new cuttings! 

 

Note, towards the top-left you can see one of my "tricks" to training young branches down, which is to hang fishing weights! :)

Next is a 1-year old Cajun Gold, sent to me as a cutting by a very generous member and recently had the main trunk pruned to give cuttings to another very generous member, so is being trained as a bush.  I'm looking forward to trying those figs that are ripening!

 


Next up is a 4 year old Texas Everbearing bush.  It's been producing lots of figs over the last couple of seasons.  Since I recently received my USDA order and have a lot more cuttings to play with, I thought I'd try my hand at grafting.  So, what you see on the right are two Calvert cuttings grafted onto the TE (I credit Armando's recent post for the inspiration and my ability to finally muster the nerve to try this!):

 

There's not much to see, but I basically did a splice graft, wrapped it with saran wrap, and then with garden tape.  The only recommendation I'd pass on is that when you wrap the splice, make sure the final wrap is from the bottom-up.  This creates a "shingle" effect, so that water running down falls onto the next wrap and not into it:

 
Next is one of two one-year old LSU Holliers donated as a cutting by the same member who sent the Cajun Gold cuttings.  Both Holliers grew over 6' in the first year as single trunks and were recently pruned.  In retrospect, I probably should have taken the trunks on both down lower and will likely do that next season:

 

Next is one of two Strawberry Vertes purchased as cuttings from Jon just over a year ago.  It's got a little bit of rust, but is very healthy and, so far, the best tasting figs I've harvested:

 

Here's an LSU Purple that seems to want to grow naturally as a bush that I purchased as a tissue culture maybe around 9 months ago, or so.  I don't know if it's characteristic of the TC plants, the LSU Purple, or just MY LSU Purple, but this seems to be the slowest growing of all my figs.

 
Here are some of the other things I have growing out back...

This is an Emerald Blueberry.  I have five different varieties of BB's that are all fruiting now, but two of them are rather young and small so it will be another year or two before all five are giving substantial harvests:

 

Here are two TR Hovey Dwarf Papaya trees.  The one on the left is about two years old and the one on the right is only about a year old.  I've been harvesting papayas from the older one (you can see another is almost ripe now) and the younger is just starting to put out flowers, so we'll have to wait to see if they drop or form some fruit:

 

Here is a Williams Hybrid banana surrounded by two Dwarf Cavendish bananas.  The Williams was purchased about a year ago as a small tissue culture and I expect it will fruit this season.  The two DC's were pups from my original DC that's already fruited (I had a banana/papaya milk shake yesterday!).  I'm hoping the Williams starts putting out some pups so I can get some more of this plant!

 
Here are a couple of rooted cuttings I took a month or so ago from my Parfianka Pomegranate, which I didn't take a picture of.  In the background are some dragonfruit (Pitaya) cuttings from some Pitayas I have that are also not pictured:

 

Last up for today are a couple pics of one of my ground cherries, also known as the "cape gooseberry".  I had a friend visit in November who brought some ground cherries he had grown.  I took seeds from a few and now have five plants growing (after a LOT of thinning!).  These things basically grow like weeds, and produce quick!  The fruit develops in these lantern-shaped husks and when ripe, the husks turn brown and the fruit falls to the ground (you can see one on the lawn on the left).  Peel away the "paper-like" husk and, assuming ripe, there's a golden-yellow fruit inside that tastes delicious:

 
Here's a closer look at what's waiting to be harvested:

 
Hopefully, I'll have some more pics soon of some rooted USDA cuttings!

Happy Easter weekend to everyone!

All very very beautiful.  I love the grafts too really nice.

Nice pics, thanks for sharing and Happy Easter.

Beautiful trees thank you for sharing.

Is there room for one more snow bird (Canadian) in Florida.? They are nice looking specimens. I dont know about milkshakes but up till few days ago, I could make a snow cone. The fabric pots some of your trees are in, what is the name of them and how do they hold up?
Thanks,
Mike

Very nice Figaro. The Black Mission would be a good candidate for more grafting. It's obviously vigorous. The ground cherries look like the tomatillos I grow, and I sure wish Papayas would grow here. Happy Easter to you and the rest of the forum.

If anything your figs and blueberry are showing nitrogen deficiency symptoms. So excess isn't the issue. All plants in pots need frequent fertilizer.

Your blueberry also looks to be chlorotic probably due to high pH in media. Blueberry do well with one teaspoon ammonium sulfate per gallon applied once a week.

Some of your figs have decent growth but that's being generous. The blueberry doesn't have nearly enough growth and leaves to produce a decent crop. That indicates a lack of fertilizer, water, or pH not correct.

Blueberries should look more like this:




Or this:

Nice collection. Thanks for sharing.

Beautiful trees and bushes - thank you! i love the blueberries!

Thanks for sharing, Great Stuff a happening. I also have a 5 foot tall in ground Black Mission that is not doing anything, hopefully this year it produces fruit...????

Great pics . I love the fishing weight idea ! I'd like to try that on some of my young trees. Thanks for sharing .

Wow, Figaro, thanks for the great thread!

Did you get your 4yr old Black Mission as a cutting or as a tc?

LSU Purples aren't supposed to be slow growers.  Mine (a tc like yours) is an extremely vigorous grower.

Thanks also to everyone I didn't reply to directly for all the positive comments! :)

Great pictures, your plants look awesome.  I do agree with Fruitnut...err Fignutty:)  That your BB needs more nitrogen, it looks healthy just sparse.  A good pruning after the berries are done and follow up pinching would help a ton.    By the way still waiting on roots on the Cajun Gold but should be any day now.  Your as bad as I am with all the fruiting plants:)

I've got the same question about the bags and how they hold up.

Papaya was one thing I really missed when I moved north. You can buy them up here but they don't taste the same as tree ripened. I'd leave them on the tree till they looked well past their sell by date... and they'd be just right. I found that a top dressing of wood ash makes a big difference in their taste. You might try that if you aren't already doing it. I tried growing a dwarf one in NC. I got it through the winter but the lack of light made the trunk too thin. Looked like a hourglass the next summer and didn't set fruit.

Nice trick on the fishing weights. I'll be using that idea.
Thanks for the pics.