I've just put my potted figs to rest for the winter in a family member's root cellar.  

Hey Tim
yes the root cellar is humid. mine is underneath our front porch. I have put plastic vapour barrier on the ceiling to keep the moisture off the concrete slab. moisture will condense on the plastic, freeze when it gets cold enough and during winter warm spells melt and rain down on the plants, almost no watering needed. The plants did come out of dormancy early last year. I was even bringing pails of snow and ice into the root cellar to keep it cool.
I had to do a lot of Martin's fig shuffle.
root growth stops at around 45 F

Grant
Z5b

Hey Tim
yes the root cellar is humid. mine is underneath our front porch. I have put plastic vapour barrier on the ceiling to keep the moisture off the concrete slab. moisture will condense on the plastic, freeze when it gets cold enough and during winter warm spells melt and rain down on the plants, almost no watering needed. The plants did come out of dormancy early last year. I was even bringing pails of snow and ice into the root cellar to keep it cool.
I had to do a lot of Martin's fig shuffle.
root growth stops at around 45 F

Grant
Z5b

This root cellar is totally buried with just a vent pipe out the top.  I imagine 85-95% humidity is right.  I imagine a bit of cold air will head down the pipe in the winter but not a ton.  I'm just hoping it won't get too warm.  It was around 60 outside tonight but felt cooler down in the cellar, maybe 50ish.

I am in Zone 5a. I store some of my plants in a concrete cold storage area in the basement where the winter temperatures stays around 7C/9C (44F/48F) and the ceiling has ice (frozen moisture) from January to the beginning of March with good humidity. My plants in this room never need watering and less risk of sprouting until the beginning of April.

Ottawan,

I have thought about it many times but never tried it. One reason is that I have never rooted cuttings from my own plants yet and cuttings received from other fig friends are too precious to experiment with.
Now that you mentioned it, I will try this year. I will use peat-moss only after squeezing the water out of it and bury 2/3 length of the cuttings in it and see how much rooting progress it makes over the lazy months of winter.
Will report next late spring.

Just a question? What's the difference between a root cellar and the bury method? Is it not the same?

                                           luke

The difference is about a thousand shovel fulls of dirt in the Fall and then crawling around on your hands and knees for 2 or 3 days in the Spring. I so wish I had a root cellar.

HaHa...I mean environment wise.

Hi everyone. May we ask a question here please. If we wanted to make the fig trees go dormant, that means we shouldn't water at all during the winter if we place them indoors?

lukeoff
A root cellar with proper depth is expected to have somewhat steady low temperature due to some degree of heat balance between geothermal heat and outside extreme colds.
A bury method is trying to achieve the same but with some risk in extreme cold areas because of the shallowness and closeness to the surface temperatures.
That is what I think of.

AuntieB
You have to make sure that the soil does not get bone-dry.
If you are keeping it like a house plants and wish to let it leaf out after dormancy, you may have to start watering it (keeping the soil moist) after you see bud swelling. However, it is better for a fruit producing plant to let is stay dormant in a dark cool area (<42F) until spring so it can be taken out during the greening period.

I think I understand now. Thank you, OttawanZ5. We have mild winters where we are but we have relatives in colder regions who could benefit from the advice!

Thank you Timclymer for sharing this thread with us! Unfortunately, we've never heard of a root cellar before until now.

Just an update on the root cellar fig situation.  I checked on it a few weeks ago and pulled out a couple pots to start under grow lights.  Despite having temps in the low teens to single digits for a night, the figs I pulled out were just fine with no damage and some are now forming brebas under the grow lights.  And this is without a proper door on the cold cellar, just some boards propped up over the opening!  Definitely a good way to overwinter figs from what I've seen so far.