lol. Jason, I use them to distinguish which cuttings have rooted when they are all bunched together in the rooting container/incubator and viewed from above. Makes it easier to find the ones that are pending.

Ben the cuttings you sent me really want to grow! I already have roots coming out of the smaller pieces. Very encouraging :) I guess they like it here in my Diningroom in the frozen north :)

How would Mission figs work as container grown with a 140 day season in Wisconsin?  Any chance they would ripen? 

Lychee update.... we've got color, fruit has about reached its max size and will now gradually turn reddish and ready to pick.. This year looks like fruit is ripening earlier... Am not complaining..

Reading this post brought back some good recent memories.  Went to Honduras a couple of weeks ago.  Had my first really good and really ripe mango down there.  I am now hooked.  Them thangs are good when they are ripe.  Had some hanging on a tree outside the window where we stayed - tempting, very tempting, but not ripe!  The place also had a lychee tree.  Never had a lychee, but they weren't ready yet either. 

lychee fruit looks almost like the fruit of a Kousa Dogwood tree

Hello, Ben!

Last night I picked the first main crop fig from one of my potted Mission cuttings I got from you last year. Here are a few pictures. Considering it's age and how good the fig was, I am excited for how much better this plant will get! Thanks again.

Ruben...that looks awesome, I had a few fruit on my plants and the birds/squirrels/raccoon/opossum/etc.. beat me to them....

Those figs look seriously good.

Trying to get a Mission is what ensnared me in this fig frenzy. First thing I did was try to get some cuttings from a friend who for years had a glorious tree, with lots of fruits to share. Alas when I went for cuttings, it was in major fail.  

Next was trying to buy one, but at the local 'cheap' nursery, a small stick was $29. No thanks.

Next was finding a Mission at the local home show. It was only $15, and looked nice. Then when I got it home, the base label said VdB. Not bad, but still not a mission.

Next was buying some cuttings from Ebay before I knew who to buy from. These are rooted, but vegetatively they don't look like photos of other mission trees.

So after all this, I still don't know if I have a true Mission. But even if I don't, there is always next year.  I also now have lots of other good figs, and have been having a blast. :)

LOL, how sad to not have a Mission in life. ;)

Hey Gina I have what is supposed to be a mission fig bucket full of cuttings read my post and you will see the picks if you want I can send you a few there fresh the person had no reason to lie about it he was throwing all his trimmings away and I took them and trimmed all the branches down and the leaves etc and made them all cuttings 

Thanks Tony, I was just checking my fig cuttings, and totally had forgotten when I wrote my 'Desparately Seeking Mission' saga above, that I recently was given a few Mission cuttings from a labeled tree actually growing in a garden at one of the original California Missions. The tree isn't that old - maybe 10 yrs, and I'm sure it was purchased from a nursery, but would hate to think they were growing brown turkeys, lol. And they are rooting, so I'm hoping that is the end of the saga. It would be such a perfect end too. :)

Black Mission is one of the cuttings I have on order from UC Davis.  Until we find the acreage we want, I'm happy with the cuttings I now have propagating, and am willing to wait for 2013 for my UCD order to fill. Black Mission is a good fig, and we all should have it in our collections, especially those of us who grew up here in California, going to the Missions for school field trips.

So many fig varieties, so little room!
Suzi

Gina, if your cuttings don't pan out...let me know... I can fix this fairly easily.

Thanks Ben. I'm hoping I have it this time. :)