Just a general question for forum members:

Would our "modern" fig varieties survive if they were planted back, into their natural habitats, in the Middle East, Italy, Greece Portugal?  I'm not referring to varieties that originated in the Middle East, like "Red Lebanese"...I mean varieties like "Scott's Black" ..."LSU Gold / Purple"..."Improved Celeste"..."Alma"...etc.  Would these figs have the moxie to grow and thrive in a natural environment, i.e. sunny, rocky hills, poor chalky soils, dry weather, etc?  Do you think the "wild genes" have been bred out of modern cultivars?

Are the fig varieties that we grow here, also sold over there?

I always wondered.

Frank

Not sure, Frank, but a fig tree is a weed tree.  They just love Mediterranean climates and they are hard to kill or get rid of in the right climate. 

You, over there in snow land buck the system, and do what you can to get a fig or two.  You are not alone.  Thus comes the fig shuffle!

Me?  I need to slay native oaks, eucalyptus, and other stuff to make room for my figs.  Got my chain saw ready!

Suzi

suzi,

be careful. My shin serves as a lesson as to what can happen with a chainsaw!

Suzi...

I will be eating my delicious, unknown, "Red Italian" figs within the next days.  They just have to hang another day, maybe two.  "Atreano Gold" will follow shortly.

There was a time when I would pull my 25 gallon containerized trees out of my storage shed, lift the trees onto a dolly, roll them up a very steeply inclined, 50ft driveway, around the front of my house, up three brick steps, lift them into my front hallway, roll them through my living room, through the kitchen, through sliding glass doors, and place them onto my back deck to live in the warm, sunny weather.  Then this process would be reversed each year, when cool weather arrived in the good, old Bronx, NYC.  Only a few neighbors still talk to me because they think I'm mentally ill.  They are right.  After almost getting double-hernias, I stopped this idiotic shuffle routine, and now, my trees live only a few feet away from my shed.

The shuffle is for young men, and flat, level driveways.  But, if I want figs, I gotta do what I gotta do.  If I grow a set, maybe I will leave the trees outside, over the Winter, and see what happens.  That's playing Russian Roulette though, and eventually, I will lose.  It just takes one bad Winter.

Be careful with the chainsaw.  They can bite!

Frank

Let's truly think about this.  A chain saw slays the shade, and creates sun.  An auger drills planting holes.  Whats wrong with that?

You just hire some dude to do the thing!

Suzi

That is an interesting question. Field trials here in Texas, aka abandoned farms, indicate that Celeste will certainly survive but of course not reproduce. Are the parthenocarpic figs most of us cultivate capable of being caprified? Whenever I thing of toughness in figs the photos Gorgi posted from Malta last year of the seedling tree growing out of a rock face always comes to mind. An effect I certainly hope to be able to talk a garden customer into sometime...I would speculate that most of them would not survive in the harshest of homelands. The Italian figs for instance are selected in a climate more hospitable than Jordan. Some of my fig cultivars fare better or worse in the heat and drought here than others.

Frank,

In all good spirit you were mental... well we all are. At least our mental illness of the fig is one that rewards us all and then some. Would rather have a fig head next door anyway, we could share figs and wine. 


Chris

Alexis...

You brought up points that I never considered, namely, reproduction.  Very interesting information.



Chris...

I've been told, many times, to go have my head examined.  I'm glad that I abandoned schlepping my tress all over the joint, and just let them grow by the storage shed.  I'm too out of shape to drag 100 lb. containerized fig trees.

Frank