Hi all, my name is Will. I'm new to gardening and even newer to fig trees, but your forums have been a huge help to me so far. 

I bought a three or four year old Peter's Honey for my wife as an anniversary present, and I put it in the ground about two weeks ago. After reading your posts I think I have a rough idea why it's behaving funny, but I was just looking for a second opinion.

So here goes: I bought the small tree (about 4'5") from a great nursery, took it home and popped it in the ground. It gets full sun, and when I put the soil back around the tree I made sure to mix in some peat too, as Portland has clay soil.

After three days the leaves started to droop, so I gave it a ton of water and they all picked back up, and the tree looked great again. However, we then had three days of heavy rain and now the leaves have turned yellowy brown and droopy, a few have dropped. Am I right in thinking this is just a plant that is a) shocked to have been moved to a new place, and b) a bit overwatered thanks to the PNW rain?

I've attached some photos to show you how it's looking. Thanks for any help!

Will

 
 
 
 

Looks like there maybe to much fruit on the tree and the plant just can't keep up after being moved.

I have no clue what do with fig trees but the thing is that's what I know from my gardening experience.

Will, it sounds like your tree is drowning. In heavy clay soil the hole sometimes acts like a bucket, holding water around the plant and drowning it.

The solution is to dig square holes or to dig "branches" off the original hole. That way it will not just sit there and hold water. Since this one is already planted, I would suggest digging a couple of drainage "branches" off from the hole, maybe 2-3 ft each. That should allow the water to drain away.

Also, keep the drainage problem in mind when  you water it. Maybe go a little lighter.

Daniel, thanks mate! I'll give that a go tonight and hopefully that'll help the tree.I'll do some googling now, but can you recommend any tutorials or videos on digging these branches?

Check if you don't have any gophers burrowing around your tree. They love new additions to the garden. Fig trees in particular are excellent for their menu. :)

See if you can put plastic or something so the ground around it doesn't get so soaked during heavy rains.  At a previous house we had clay soil.  I remember digging a hole for a rose bush.  OMG!  It was hard and held water like a red clay pot with no drain hole.  Surprisingly the rose lived, but I doubt a fig would.  They do love well drained soil.

Good luck to you!

Suzi

I've dug four trenches off the root ball, which will hopefully help the drainage. The tree lost a few more leaves this weekend, probably due to yet more shock. If anyone else has anymore tip on how to keep this tree alive, I'm all ears! Thanks for all the help so far.  
 
 

willstuff,

I don't think the problem is an waterlogged soil. In the pictures your soil looks fine. That reaction is probably the shock of being moved to your location from a sheltered? nursery and/or not liking the soil chemistry very much. With such a big tree and with all the fruit it has, it simply couldn't cope with all the changes and its trying to survive. It's always better to buy them when their are dormant, without leaves.

It will probably let most, if not all, the leaves and fruits fall, but it won't dye. Next spring, if not sooner, it will be more adapted and should produce new leaves and figs. Unless you are in a very cold region, where the tree can freeze in the winter, i wouldn't worry.

Regarding clay soils i have some experience. See where i have to grow my fruit trees. If i had 3 days of heavy rains the new holes would be completely filled with water, even with the side trenches, several days after the rains:

    

Part of the solution, in this case, is to elevate the trees and dig side trenches and most will adapt after some years, although some types of fruit trees, that don't like to have their feet wet, never do.

Thanks for your help, Jsacadura! I was definitely worried about the shock of the fig going from nursery to garden - I just hope it can pull through! Do you have any tops on how to protect it through the winter? We live in Portland, OR so the winters are not terrible, but they do get cold. Snow may be on the menu.

Living in a  region where in our coldest winters we have -7ºC, roughly 20 ºF, i am not a good source to help you protect your tree in the winter, as i don't do it.
I can tell you that if it's not well rooted and adapted its probably not a very good idea to have her endure very hard winter conditions. That could kill her. But i see that you don't have that problem over there.

If you bought the tree a few weeks ago in a container i would have considered keeping her in it or change it to a bigger container, so i could place it in a protected environment for the winter, if it was a colder region than yours.
Then i would put it in the soil, in the next spring. But with your minimum temperatures rarely going below 0ºC, if that is correct, i wouldn't worry too much. I seem to have more cold over here than you - no snow though.

If you have at least one or two more months of stable growing conditions (not too much cold coming soon) i would keep her in the ground with no fear. It's probably enough time for the roots to grow and to stable the plant so it can resist the colder weather without problems.

Hey Alan, thanks for your help here mate. I didn't know the peat was so bad, but it's a good job that I didn't add very much. It was about 10-15% peat to the rest native soil. Fingers crossed I haven't done too much damage!

Crap! This may sound like a stupid question, but I'm new to gardening so I apologise: how long does the moisture-holding peat last in the soil? Does it break down after a few months and therefore stop holding as much moisture? Hopefully so!

Thanks mate!

Fig trees are very resilient.  My first was a well rooted Brown Turkey.  Buried it ground level during a high water table when new like you and nearly drowned it in mud.  Pulled it up and rinsed off the mud and re-potted in a raised pot with better draining soil.  Tried to make air layers, bugs attacked it.  All leaves turned brown and fell off.  In a few weeks it got all new leaves. It still lives.  

I bet yours will survive you too. :) 

Every time I repot a active growing and leafed out tree in mid to late summer, the tree gets stressed.  The leaves turn yellow and they fall to the ground.  It has been my experiences in my cases the tree was not able to hold water at the roots.  Plus temps were over 90 and the added heat did not help!  After sitting the tree in a bucket of liquid root stimulator for a few days, the tree bounced back after dropping all the yellow leaves.  New leaves popped out in days and now you can't tell the tree was ever stressed.