Greetings all

Seems like a long time waiting for buds to break out here in MD, but my in-ground HC and Celeste are finally showing signs of life. I also attached a snap of how they looked buried in snow just a few months ago.

Looking good!

Mark,

Glad it is working out for you and the buds breaking. Some just take longer than others.

I have a Nordland. Said to be one of the hardiest and cold tolerant figs out there. Dead!
But others that you least expect were amongst some of the early risers.

To sum it up, figs are just plain strange sometimes.

Hi Maro2bear,
See, patience is the key. It is good that the tree comes back from the stems and not from the roots. Those stems are the energy for the tree to grow better.
Don't forget to help them water + fertilizer and if something is shading them ... cut !

@Rafed : My longue d'aout/Nordland is alive but decided to show no brebas this year. I'll have to rely on the maincrop ...
              I'm going to fertilize her like fire is found in hell . Or she'll produce, or she'll burn. I'm out of patience on her . It is a shame, as that fig has such an unique taste.

Figtrees need support from their gardener to perform at their best .

I'm in DC, and have two trees (one Celesdte, one Brown Turkish) I planted in my back yard six years ago. Both were enormous last year, over 10 feet tall and as wide. I gave both a heavy pruning in November because they were getting out of control.

Neither tree has shown any sign of leafing (last year they were covered in foliage by mid April). I noticed today the Brown Turkish has pushed a 4 inch shoot out of the root ball with a few leaves. I know this winter was the harshest in the 18 years I've lived in DC, but i never imagined it would wipe out these well-established trees.

I'm about 50 miles west of DC and there are severely damaged trees all over the place. Tough winter.

that means i need to make some phone calls today :) 

Greetings all

Just when I thought there was absolutely no chance what-so-ever for this one HC look what is popping today. Here we are 29 June and this tree decided to give it a go. I had totally given up on it. I had totally neglected it for the past month other than cutting all the dead wood almost back to the ground looking for proof of life. Been busy with other summer projects and luckily my drip irrigation system was set to still provide this " dead" wood with a daily dose of water. You would not believe how many times over the past month I almost dug out the roots!

Bottom line keep the faith, keep them watered and don't give up.

I've attached a snap of it covered back on 1 December 2014 before all the snowstorms and cold wxr.

Mark, this is an interesting topic for me, mostly along the lines of protection. So your tree was protected and yet it still suffered severe dieback. I need to ask some questions.

1. How old was the HC?

2. Was it completely hardened off before you protected it, or was there still green wood?

3. Because it's hard to tell sometimes in a picture, how thick was the layer of leaves from the core where the tree was to the outside of the wire cage?

4. Were the leaves  just loosely filled into the wire cage or were they packed a bit?

5. The outer layer just being a trash bag I'm sure leaked moisture at least some, were the leaves moist/wet when you uncovered it this spring?

I ask all these questions because your method is very similar to what I plant to try in the future, in a colder zone. Difference being I had planned to use a wider cage giving a  thicker layer of insulation with leaves, and using a tarp with plywood on top as well. I realize that in your zone during a normal winter,  minimal protection is probably all you would need. But this is good information for us in zones lower than yours.

Thanks.

Greetings all

Going to try and respond to Calvin's questions here tonight. So, here goes:

Mark, this is an interesting topic for me, mostly along the lines of protection. So your tree was protected and yet it still suffered severe dieback. I need to ask some questions.

1. How old was the HC?
--- this was started early winter 2013, so it was not yet a year old and this past Arctic winter was its first

2. Was it completely hardened off before you protected it, or was there still green wood?
--- completely hardened off, had been in ground and growing, fertilizer stopped a long time before winter: actually covered it once all leaves had naturally fallen and before any arctic blasts hit the area

3. Because it's hard to tell sometimes in a picture, how thick was the layer of leaves from the core where the tree was to the outside of the wire cage?
--- I think this is the culprit that didnt help. I had some extra hardware cloth that I made a circle and staked it around the tree firmly. Problem is that the distance from center of tree to the enclosure was probably only about 6inches, so the total diameter was about 12 inches, max 14.

4. Were the leaves just loosely filled into the wire cage or were they packed a bit?
--- i used a mixture of mulched and just raked. Again, by the time I got to this one, i probably didnt have enough shredded leaves and used mostly just raked oak leaves.

5. The outer layer just being a trash bag I'm sure leaked moisture at least some, were the leaves moist/wet when you uncovered it this spring?
--- surprisingly, the leaves inside stayed quite dry and there really was no moisture inside.

I do think that my problem with this particular tree was that it was a lot more exposed than other trees i protected, and I didn't use a large enough container, and I should have used all shredded leaves, vice mostly unshredded.

Hope this helps!

If you look at pix in the initial posting in this thread, you can see my other winter enclosures were much larger, and they worked well.

Thanks Mark! Good to know the bigger enclosures worked well.