Just wanted to hear from you guys how you plant you fig trees in the ground. I like to mix a little potting soil and sand with my native soil. I did a big hole. I stick the fig tree in the hole and back fill. And I may or may not put a little pine bark mulch around the tree.

I've learned the hard way. I only plant trees in the fall. They need all that time to adapt before the intense summer heat comes.


Please share any advise or things that have worked for you.

Hi twobrothersgarden,
It all depends on your dirt and your garden.
If you have the perfect dirt, just dig a small hole and the tree will do the rest.

If your dirt is not perfect ... You need to adapt if you want better crops.
My dirt is not perfect for fig trees it seems :
1. It is clay and in rainy weeks clay holds water and that rots the roots of the fig trees
2. In the summer with the heat and lack of water, clay will turn into concrete, and the roots will suffocate and rot
3. Noah dropped all the rodents he had here, and I have to deal and cope with .
4. I grow other veggies near my trees so I sometimes disturb the roots of the trees.

So I use 3 planting methods :
Method 1: a small hole -size of the rootball - and let the tree make her life .
Method 1 enhanced : Plant jonquils around the trees and add some compost to the dirt (or over the dirt ) and make a bigger,larger,deeper hole to soften more dirt for the roots to grow quicker and thicker.
Method 2: 80 liters trashcan buried with bottom removed with a mix of local dirt + compost from the nurseries. Mix is a troublesome word as I add those 2 dirts in layers rather than mixing them .
Method 3: 1 or 2 gallon pots buried with bottom removed with a mix of local dirt + compost from the nurseries... Yes I'm still young and strong ... No I'm not lazy ... I said .

It is believed that using Method2, the trees get a dwarfing effect with shorter inter-node distance which is good IMO and the trees concentrate on crops instead of growing, and so far, this is exactly my own observations .
The only drawback is the watering in the summer heat. Not all my trees have troubles and with time hopefully that problem will be less of a worry as the roots are still (hopefully) growing to the depth of the trashcan .
I noticed that trees in a shady spot or shading their own trashcan have less problems - so that might be an easy trick to use !
Method2 has for now proved to be rodent-proof !
Method3 seems to give good results for the rodent protection and the trees will be able to escape the pot sooner ... Time will tell as I only started using this method last year ...
Good luck !

thanks jdsfrance helped me to planning on planting some next year

Hey jdfrance,



Do you plant your fig trees so that all the roots and some of the trunk are under the soil line?

I was told to do that by my local nursery place.

I never followed this advice though.

Wouldn't planting the tree that deep below the soil line ROT the trunk and the root ball.


Anyone Know?

Anyone seen this?

Henry,

I was always tought to plant fig trees when they are fully dormant, and to bury the rootball and part of the stem, and it's been successful for me so far. When they are fully dormant, there's a much lower chance of transplant shock. I think planting a fig tree is a lot like surgery; it's easier if the patient is asleep (dormant) lol.

For me, backfilling with a half and half mix of native dirt and mulch/manure has been pretty successful. I'm in Oceanside and the dirt around my house is clay-ish backfill. Not sure what it's like in Brawley, but I think the intense sun would be more of a worry.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

I always fig a hole slightly larger than the rootball and then place the tree in so the soil at the same level as it was in the pot. I then backfill all of the soil trying to avoid all air pockets. I put maybe half an inch of soil over the roots on top and use the rest of the soil to make a shallow rain catching ring. Lastly I mulch the base and water everything in very well to increase the contract with the soil and the roots and to eliminate air pockets. I water newly planted trees more frequently and deeply until they look resilient with no abnormal wilting. I can use this method because my soil is pretty decent and friable. I think if your soil is all clay or all sand you will probably have to use soil amendments. I have planted between 15 and 20 trees and shrubs in my yard this year with that method and they all settled in just fine. Most of these plantings were non-dormant trees.

Planting a fig tree deeper than it was in the pot, ie burying part of the trunk, will not rot the trunk. (perhaps it might if your soil is constantly waterlogged.) The tree will sprout new roots from that portion of the trunk, Fig trees like to grow roots, that is why cuttings and air-layers are so easy to do.  ...  The first fig trees I bought cam with the instructions to pot them and then bury the pots an inch or two deep... What the seller meant was to dig a whole an couple of inches deep and place the bottom of the pot in the whole so the roots could grow out into the surrounding soil.  But what did I know, the instructions said to bury the pot, so I dug a couple of holes about a foot and a half deep and buried the pots so that the top was a couple of inches below the surface, lol.  lots of roots come fall dig up time.

My soil is not too bad so I plant similarly to Brian keeping the tree at the same level as it was in the pot maybe 1" lower. 

To reduce the workload of covering the trees for our cold winters I am thinking of adding another growing method for my in-ground fig trees next year;

1. bend some rebar into the shape of a large planter with handles. Will need to experiment as to the size that works best will start with 3' square 2' deep
2. dig appropriate size hole, place rebar in the ground and plant select fig tree and grow as in-ground.
3. for winter protection - dig around rebar a little to cut roots and using tractor with a front end fork lift the tree out of the ground and drive tree to a corner of the barn for the winter.
4. following year clean up the hole in the ground add some amendments like compost/manure and drop the fig tree back in.

I am pretty sure it will work fine for a few years but I will need to keep the tree and roots pruned so it is workable longer term.

Has anyone tried something like this before or have any suggestions?
 

it depends on the shape of the tree.
i buy older trees but one nursery grows them tall
if i dont want to do an airlayer i just dig a hole deep enough to get the tree at the height i want.
there is no reason to bother with anything.
the trunk will root and you will have a stronger plant.  

they must give them big trees lots of fertilizer in those small pots

Hi twobrothersgarden,
I normally plant the top of the pot at the height of the dirt ... Except for one tree that is one of my guinea-pigs.
That figtree has only the bottom 10 cm / 3  inches in the dirt, the other 30 cm / 10 inches are over the dirt .
The reason for that test are the rodents, a test for drainage and a test to see if that tree will wake up sooner than the others - from the sun hitting
the pot and raising the temp sooner . The roots of that tree are more exposed to the frost, but since I use the 80 liters trashcan to winterize that tree, that shouldn't be a problem.

Do you have clay as well ? Or drainage problems ?

With all trees I dig a hole about 3 times the root ball diameter and twice as deep. I put chunks of dry-rotted wood in the bottom. Then a layer of sand. The rest of the dirt is a mixture of the original soil and goat poop. And top it all off with a 6 in layer of compost to keep it from drying out.

In climates where it freezes hard, fig trees should be planted with the root ball 6 inches or more below the final soil line. That insulates the roots and gives the trunk more opportunity to produce a bush form which is better in cold climates.     

All of my in ground figs are in coastal NC, very sandy soil that is also infested with root knot nematode (RKN).

I dig a large hole at least 3x what I need, mix in organic potting mix, compost, or manure  - usually about 2 cubic feet.  The tree STAYS in, or is planted first in a 5 gallon bucket.  Bottom of bucket is removed, and the tree, with the bucket, is planted leaving about 2 inches of the bucket above the soil line.  Then I top with plenty of bark mulch. 

RKN only live in the top foot or so of the soil (they need light), and are repelled by organic containing soils (though the reason for this is unknown), so the combination of planting the bucket and amending with organic material should keep the RKN at bay.  Mulching should provide a continuous protective "shield" of organic matter to keep them away.

This is my first year with in ground figs, all of them grew very well.

good method my in ground trees are growing roots right at the soil line no sighn of galls im in goldsboro nc