Knowing how we all love to see pictures of figs and fig trees, I thought I'd start this thread just to share pictures of some of the fig trees I've come across here in my local area.

This first one is a tree I learned about a couple of years ago through a friend. I spoke to the owner and he was happy to share a rooted piece of the tree. He didn't seem to know much about the fruit of the tree though.

The tree I have grew very nicely this year. It started producing fruit but they all dropped. Same happened last year too but I attributed it to the fact that it's still a young tree. I'll give it another year or two before I "put it out to pasture".

This is the only picture I have of the parent tree. The original owner has since passed away from cancer. The new owners ripped the tree out because they didn't like it growing so close to the house. For this reason I'm very glad I have a start of it. I've nick-named it Catalina Drive - after the street it was found on:

EDIT: This is the largest tree I've found growing in KY so far. Not bad for zone 6.

Wow... that's very white-looking bark.  Or was it whitewashed to protect it in the sun or something?

Mike

No Mike, that's just how that tree looked. I thought the same thing - very white bark. It was really a very nice tree when fully leafed out too. I hope I can get some of the fruit to hang on until fully ripe. Until then we can only guess about what variety it might be. One thing's for sure, it must be pretty cold hardy to not die back at all for many years on end here in zone 6. Granted it was growing on the south side of the house but still, we had temps below zero and the tree didn't die back even then.

It's obviously a vigorous grower. I grafted onto one of the suckers that shot up on my tree. It grew the largest graft of any of my other grafts (Scott's Yellow to about 3').

Nice find Bill.  Let us know how the fruit tastes.

Michael some tree take on the whiteish bark and look even more whiteish in photo's taken in sun.
I have noticed as some of mine aged the main takes on the witeish color and eventually some of the side branches as they age.
I have several examples.

@ Martin. So the white looking bark is due to that fact that it was just a more mature tree? I'm sure that's right because the young tree I have doesn't have the white bark like the mother tree - yet.

Joe. I can only hope that I get this tree to ripen fruit. It really seems prone to dropping its fruit. Maybe this will change as it matures. Or maybe is a breba only type. I should be able to find this out next season. I have it buried under mulch so the breba embryos (if any) should be protected from the frost. Time will tell.............

Bill not sure my Italian unknown about 5 years of age had brownish tone before i disposed of it.

maybe the aged whites bark is a result of years of sun bleaching or damage. just a thought. i still have not found a single fig tree growing in my neck of the woods other than the ones i am growing. if i ever do find another around here i will do the happy dance.

@ Martin & Dave. I guess I should have added to my post #6 that the variety and conditions both could be a factor. I had thought it but didn't think to mention it. That's my story & I'm sticking to it  :-} .

It was on a south facing wall so all that extra sun could have been a factor.

I had also been forgetting to mention that the neighboring house just to the north of this one has another tree that looks to be a mirror image to this one. Fortunately, they haven't removed that one yet. When I spoke with that neighbor he said that he didn't think that the trees were the same variety. The other neighbor (the one that passed away) said the opposite. He thought they had been planted at the same time by relatives who lived next to each other, many years ago, in these two houses.

Bill i forget to say thanks for taking the time and showing the picture.  ; )

You're welcome Martin. That's what it's all about, right?

By the way I have plans to post pics of at least two others that I found around here. Soon as I get around to it. About time for dinner right now though. My favorite time of day :) .

While you might see thousands of mature trees,
at thousands of different homes,
99% of them represent a small handful of varieties.

Bill

   Does the fact that the figs dropped give any clue to the identity of the variety? Did the neighboring tree drop it's figs, too?

D--

@ hungryjack. That is very encouraging to me to know that there are so many fig trees growing there and it's the same ag zone that I live in. So, what's the most common variety growing up there? I've been to the NY area twice in my life but that was way before I had ever given thought to growing fig trees.

I know what I'll be keeping an eye out for the next time I visit the area :) . When I do, maybe I'll give you a heads up Jack.

Dale. You have a good point there. The fact that the figs tend to drop is one piece of the puzzle. When I asked the neighbor about the fruit on his tree he said something like "we get fruit sometimes". When I asked about the color of the fruit, he said he didn't remember. So, not much help there. I will try to go by there again this summer/fall to see if I can catch when the fruit should be about ripe.

I also hold out some hope for my little tree. I say little but it was about 4' tall by season's end.

Here are some pics of a tree (actually two trees) that I found growing near Paris TN. I'm pretty sure this one is a Celeste type. Seems to be a variant though because the fruit tend to ripen sort of a purplish. Thus I dubbed it with the unofficial title of "Paris Purple". More of a descriptor than a name.

That's a half dollar in the pictures with the fruit btw. Coins happen to be just one more of my many interests. My poor wife ;) .

I had actually started a thread on this "Paris Purple" fig last January. I had gotten a lot of good comments as to the variety as well. Seems that there was some uncertainty as to whether it was Celeste or not. I'm still guessing a Celeste variant of some sort though.

There are additional pics in that other thread if you'd like to check them out.   http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/Paris-Purple-Fig-Tree-5068451

I'm also going to add a couple other pics of the tree here that weren't in the other thread. I hope you enjoy them:

Cool looking fig Bill. Interesting how it "stains" the fig right on through