Tim I would suggest Marseilles VS Black. This is a hardy grower great tasting fig can be kept small and produce alot of figs. I have two in 5 gal pots and two in the ground. They all get pruned back to about 12 inches high easy to store in the basement. That is a good staring point then travel around in Sept. tasting fruits from your found trees get some cuttings and root your collection. the number of trees grows quickly as like chips you cant just have one. You want to look for a ripe fruit with a tight closed eye to prevent spoilage from fall rains. then go for taste what you like stick with it dont be scared off a cultivar by others opinion. I am just over the bridge in NJ if you want to come by I will give you a few starts but remember it is contagious....

Hi Tim, welcome to Delaware, the small wonder! There are lots of trees in Wilmington, I found multiples of most of the varieties that are pictured in this thread. Looking forward to seeing some more local trees and maybe going on a hunt this September.

You are a solid zone 7a by the way in Wilmington, in pots you could grow just about anything you want and do OK.

Hi Tim...

Welcome to this forum.  You will find all very helpful and friendly.  You'll also get good advice.

Try:  "Trees of Joy" and Bill's Figs for sources of trees that will do well in your area.

For a "white" fig..."Golden Atreano" will be hard to beat.  I grow it in a large container, and for the last two years, it has grown without protection.  It makes very large, golden-yellow figs with excellent flavor.  It is vigorous, but easily kept to size by pinching techniques to limit growth.  All figs can be controlled, and kept manageable.

For some "blacks" try:  "Hardy Chicago" ... "Black Marseilles-VS"  (difficult to find)...."Negronne"/"Violette de Bordeaux" ....also, "Trees of Joy" lists many varieties that will do well in 6/7a.  Ask about varieties that will ripen figs in your short season, and use pinching techniques to bring on this ripening, faster.

Your basement, unless it is very cool, will not be the best place to store trees for winter, nor, would your west-facing window.  Your apartment will be too warm to store dormant trees.

This forum, and the Garden-Web Fig Forum, both, have extensive information regarding overwintering requirements for figs, as well as huge amounts of information on how to grow containerized fig trees, etc.  Just a little searching on the subjects you seek, will bring you hours of interesting reading.

Hope this might help.

Frank

Tim,
Frank is right.  You will need to think of a plan on where to keep the trees in the winter.  This is very important.  Most people call fertilizer "plant food", but to me this belies a lack of understanding of how plants work.  Fertilizer is like plant vitamins, light is plant food.  And for a fast growing, fruit producing plant like a fig, they need direct sunlight, or very bright grow lights.  If they are in a warm location, but do not get enough light, they will slowly starve.  However, when they are dormant (which only happens when they are less than 40 degrees), they don't need any light.

The basement is almost certainly too warm.  The trees will not go fully dormant, and will use up energy producing leaves, etc, which is not a good situation. 

A south facing window would be OK, though not necessarily ideal.  A west facing window probably will not provide enough light.  If you think about it, a west facing window only gets direct sun for at most half the day.  In the dead of winter, that is only about 4 hours, tops.  And that sunlight is fairly weak due to the angle of the sun, etc.  If you wanted to add a high wattage fluorescent light on a timer to supplement, your plant would do OK, but that might not be aesthetically pleasing.  Otherwise, the lack of light would not be good for the tree. 

If you have a large enough pot, you could keep it outside in zone 7, particularly if it's right next to a south facing wall.  However, it's possible in an extreme cold spell, the pot could freeze, which would kill the plant.  The roots are very sensitive to cold and have to stay above freezing.  The branches of a fully dormant fig tree, can withstand temperatures down to 15 or 20 degrees.

If you had access to an outdoor garage, that would be a much better winter solution.  The garage will prevent the tree from getting too cold, but it should be cold enough to allow the plant to go dormant. 

Personally, I would figure all that out before I tried to decide which variety to grow.  That's going to have more impact on your success, in my opinion.

Good luck.

Most new fig-lovers buy their first trees in the spring season, and revel in the glow of finally growing a fig tree that will bring tons of rewards for little effort.

Then....they panic when they learn that the growing part is real easy, but the overwintering part needs some very careful planning if the tree is expected to survive the winter months.

NOW is the time to think about a winter-storage strategy.  There are many ways that this can be done, but a cool, dark area is the best.  The tree will go into a quiescence when kept just above freezing, and should be kept that way until warm spring temperatures can support all new growth without damage from lower nighttime temperatures.  They should NOT be stored dark and warm...do this, and Timmy has no tree in 2013.

If at all possible, try to arrange to store your tree in a protected, but unheated, cool, space,  "Grease" the Super, and see if you can put your tree in some cool area...and forget about it from dormancy, until April.  Just a thought?  Maybe a neighbor will let you use their unheated garage.

Good luck, you will be fine...just plan ahead for winter problems.  We all do, who live in your climate.

Frank


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Tim...

How large is your patio area?  Will it accommodate a small, 4ft X 4ft x 6ft, closet-type shed? If yes... I'm thinking that you can shove your dormant tree in the shed and use a small heat source to keep the root-zone/container from freezing solid.  Thermostatically-controlled cables wrapped around the container may just be enough to keep the growing medium from freezing solid in the coldest months.  Jan. and Feb. will be your biggest challenge.

Just a thought to explore.  Maybe others on this forum will suggest some ways to keep your containerized tree from becoming frozen solid.

Thank you everyone for the advice.  Definitely a few things I didn't consider and some things I did but weren't knowledgeable enough to address.  I'll go in a sort of ascending order regarding responses.  

Northeastnewbie what did you mean by "give you a few starts"?  If you meant what I think you meant I'm pretty interested.  Marseilles black vs sounds pretty rare.

I missed your response for some reason. The thread came up when I was looking for housing listings advertising fig trees ; )
I think you should use the basement during the harshest parts of winter and just keep them on the patio the rest of the time. Although the temperature in the basement might be just right in winter, away from the water heaters that is.
Have you gotten a tree yet?