I plant my little figs by the boulders but on the Northern side, to protect from our SoCal sun a little.
They all love it! I also need to water them less frequently

Greenfig, have you ever started a cutting under a boulder?  We have more gophers than is allowed under California State Law, and all rooted plants get protection with gopher baskets.  Not so sure gophers go under boulders.  No roots, no food.

Suzi

No, have not started them there. I start in the damp paper towels, this works best for me. 
And I luckily have not gophers, we live in a city, but the number of damn squirrels easily triples a number of your gophers.
Want to trade? :) 

We have squirrels everywhere. coons. rabbits and birds. All eating my figs or veggies. Makes me angry. Not to mention my plums.

Squirrels aren't aloud in my yard, a violation is swiftly met with maximum force! !!

I want one of those squirrel gilatins.

My anti-squirrel device is called a little hound dog. The first year he was hell on the plants, but now he leaves them alone and squirrels don't dare come in my back yard, hardly any birds either as he chases them too.

In fact, that first year his chewing on stuff had the marvelous side-effect of severely pruning all my new raspberry bushes, I lost a year of fruiting, but when they came back they did so as an explosion!

Hey Suzi. Good luck with your new experiment . I know that it is a common practice to place a boulder on top of a low growing branch as a way to start an air layer. Roots form on the section of the branch under the Boulder because of the trapped moisture and protection from the sun just like you describe on your posting, and when you get enough roots to grow you cut the branch off and replant! Hope I could help!

let us know how it works Suzi!

In Mediterranean regions you can see figs growing in all sorts of places, including near boulders.

After you get some established, please post photos. :)

I'll definitely post photos.  Fun experiment, but not using any special cuttings.  Just some from our trees.  FRESH cuttings, but just trees that have my favorite flavored figs.

Suzi

So this morning the deed is done!  The weather is warm, and the dirt under the boulders is perfectly damp.  We came in after planting a little itchy from disturbing two ant hills, but aside from that the cuttings are in place.  All but two are from our own trees. I took one cutting of LSU Hollier, sent by Figgary to me, cut it in half and gave it two chances to root outside.  One under a rock, and one in the fig nursery.   The rest of the Hollier cuttings are rooting inside.  Some of the trees were too far into budding and leafing to even take a chance with them.  We labeled each cutting with a fork with the name in permanent ink on the handle.  I took photos big enough for me to see where on this hill each one is planted.  Hopefully in a couple months, I'll have some leafy baby trees to show to you.  We'll never know if they have rooted until they last all through the hot summer.

Here is Mary Lane Seedless on the East side of Eagle rock.  You can see her little fork handle marking where she is buried.  Kinda sounds like a funeral, but hopefully it's not.  The house with the pink flowers is across the ravine from us.  Eagle Rock got it's name because of the wing spread and the head and beak.  You have to use your imagination.
 

Here are two Paradiso cuttings side by side.  The mother tree is big for a 3 year old, but got seriously attacked by scale and we didn't notice till the beginning of this year.  It was always covered with ants, and it never occurred to me why.  There was a huge clump of scale an inch thick at it's base.  It's all been scraped off now, and treated with neem.  We will watch it carefully.  These cuttings are low branches that we didn't want, so we have two chances for a new Paradiso under this South facing spot.

  

This is Kadota under the South side of this small boulder.  She is about ten feet to the East of her mother.

 

This is one of the LSU Hollier cuttings under this flat rock.  It's the perfect dampness underneath for rooting.  The other LSU Hollier is in a trench in the Fig Nursery on a drip system.  The rest of the cuttings are either in perlite, sphagnum or a paper towel in a baggie.  I hope they all root!

 

And finally, this is a cutting removed from Adriatic.  The main tree is about 3 years old with multiple trunks and is fully leafed out and loaded with figs.  We cut this one branch because it was growing where we didn't want it.  I hope it makes it.  It was kind of thin.  It's on the east side of these rocks.  Nice and damp under there.  It's close to VdB.  VdB is on a drip system, but this one will be getting it's dampness from under the rocks.

 

So, I hope to have some growing figs to photograph in 2 or 3 months.
Suzi

Hi Desertdance,
Good luck, and remember a bit more water and a bit of fertilizer every now and then can only help ...

jdsfrance, the whole idea of this experiment is to see how cuttings will do when planted in the dampness under boulders with no interference from humans.  To see if they will grow like the ones that grow wild.  There is a difference because the wild ones are from seeds which get their start in the rainy season.

I imagine at first I'll have to provide them each a little "fake" rain from a watering can, especially since California is in a drought, and the chance of them getting real rain is not good.  It is interesting to see how damp the soil really is under the boulders.  If roots form, they will surely be doing their best to reach farther under those rocks for even more dampness.  Most of our boulders are granite and many have huge cracks.  Roots from our other trees find a way into those cracks and split the rocks further.  I imagine the cuttings will do the same IF they actually root and grow.

Thanks for the tip :-)  Fake rain is on the way!

Suzi

Update today!  One of two Paradiso figs has emerged.  I don't know if there are roots yet.  We'll probably put a chicken wire cage around it for protection from voles.  You can see how little she is next to that fork!

 

And here is her close-up.  You can see the dirt clinging to her leaf.  She was picked fresh and planted immediately on 3/10/15, so this one took ten days to show up.  Will be watching the others for signs of growth.  She was watered once when planted, and again 2 days later, but just with a sprinkle from the watering can.  She has no irrigation.

 

Suzi

Very cool Suzi! The decreased need for water initially helped spark my interest in growing figs. Genuinely looking forward to the rest of your pics and updates!

That is so cool!  Congratulations so far!