so... two of my trees have suckers. each suckers are about foot long with good number of leaves. i read enough to know almost how to remove them.

however, one of the sucker will go to a forum member and i don't want to kill it by mistake. other will go to my mom. don't want to kill that either, but my mom will wait for green/dormant cutting to root.

i have few questions. how close to the parent tree do i cut the sucker off? do i need to use rooting soil after the sucker is removed or same potting mix that i'm using for the parent tree ok?

pete

Personally......I would not remove those suckers at this time. Rather, I would wait until they go dormant before I would remove them. Right now I would pile as much potting soil as possible around those suckers. This will encourage them to form new/more roots in that added soil. I would later cut as close to the mother tree as possible. That sucker should have nice roots at that time and I would plant it in whatever potting soil works best for you.

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

If you cut a sucker off will it grow more suckers in the same place?

dan,

if i get soil around the soil level of the sucker, put water bottle halves around it, and wrap it with tin foil... wouldn't that be just like doing air layer?

pete

You could airlayer both suckers and then remove the root ball when the plant goes dormant. that would give you three trees instead of two. Always good to have an extra. 

I'm with Dan on this.  If it is hot and/or dry in your area right now is not a good time to remove these because environmental stress will make the transplant much harder on the new tree.

As far as how close to cut, get as much root as you can with the new plant, but not so close you damage the mother plant.

Figs are like tomatoes in that they will root any where along the stem if covered with soil.

In the Summer and Fall, I often just bury low lying branches with dirt, or pin them down with a small U shape of wire if necessary, cover well with dirt, and then separate them out in the early Spring for transplant.  If you have hard winters in your area maybe you might want to separate them out for transplant to pots in late Fall.

When it is this hot, it is good for ripening and picking figs but nothing else.

Best wishes to all.

John