This is my first year with a bunch of fig varieties. I am absolutely amazed at how fast they grow if provided a little care.

I got a little Grantham's royal in a tiny cup that looked like a twig in March. After being up potted a couple of times, it has now outgrown a 10 gallon nursery pot and is 6' tall. 
Similar story with Peter's Honey and a Bayernfeige Violetta. They started a bit larger: gallon plants in May. Each has now completely filled out a 10 gallon pot and are around 8 feet tall. This is the maximum size I will allow them given my lack of additional space.

On the other end I have an Improved Celeste that has put on maybe 4 leaves all summer. It looks green and healthy but wants to grow really slowly.

In between is a Petit Negri that has grown up to fill a 4 gallon pot and has lots of figs on it. Nice grower but not a weed like the others.

Which are your fastest and slowest growing varieties?

  BI-39 and Montenegro have multi-trunks that have both grown 6' this summer from cuttings.   

  Martinenca Rimada hasn't grown an inch in eighteen months...  all of these are in-ground.

Hardy Chicago. Died to about 4" tall over the winter. Is now about 4'.

I know that some fig trees are fast grower and some are slow grower like Petit Negri.

I got a little Grantham's royal in a 2 gallon pot that looked like a twig cuttings at May, instead of fast growing, it shocked me that it got 25 figs ( very high production) and slower growing, At beginning of August, I removed all figs, now it gains 1 feet taller, It seems that fig trees have 2 modes, fruiting mode( slow growing) and vegetable fast growing mode, What factor controlling their mode?

Yes Ricky, that is exactly my observation as well. My GR put out a lot of figs but I took them all out. Then it took off like a rocket! 
I think it is good to let figs grow until they reach their final size and then let them fruit. More fruits that way!

Ramv, you got some very impressive growth for figs in pots.  What soil and fertilizer schedule did you use?

For me all pots have slow growth, 4 different varieties and none more than 10" vertical height gain since spring. Using store bagged and DIY mixes with Osmocote SFR.

My one in ground Strawberry Verte tree has grown 7 feet but it's sibling in a 3 gal pot barely moved.

For grafts to an in ground root stock, I 258 has put on 6 feet, BM, Preto and Em Purple have grown only 4 to 18 inches.

My in ground unknown Croatian froze to the ground, it has now 8ft tall branches. A small Panache has grown 1 inch and has 3 small leaves, no idea why. Strange season, some arieties did almost nothing while others burst. My last cutting of Randino is alive but has not grown a single leaf.

My Hardy Chicago grows like crazy, both in roots and branches. I think they would make a good tree for grafting slower varieties. My MBVS is my slowest grower this year. But it's still trying to grow figs.

I guess that 10" vertical grow is very bad there in your much warmer area.
I think that we need to understand what condition best for fig trees.

There are  2 main items different in ground tree VS in pot.

In ground fig trees are better regulated moisture with stable fertilizer, in pot mean that it really depend on your feeding, I feed my 5G pot near 1 gallon+ water per day, I fertilizer them weekly, Fig trees can take high dose fertilizer much better than flower with higher tolerance salts/acidity burn.

It grows the best at temperature between 80F, If high temperature is 90F and low temperature is 70F, average temperature is 80F.
- ground trees are better soil temperature regulation.
- In pot trees are pretty bad on temperature regulation, roots love to wrapping around near pot wall area, In your area, Black pots under sun can easily reach 120F and it can kill/burn roots, You can check it out by looking at browning dead roots on 1 side of pot.


 

I don't get your experience with Improved Celeste.  I started 5 cuttings last December.  By March they were 2' tall with little figs (which I removed, at least for a while).  But now the trees are 4' tall x 4' wide.  Each one has ripened at least a half dozen figs.  One had a vigorous branch that I air layered, and the potted air layer is >3' tall.  My only .suggestion is to give it plenty of water

Very subjective.

I have several slow growing varieties that I have re-grown, and the growth rate and habits have definite variations.

Not all but it does occur.

My first year fico preto, Socorro black and i258, are the size of 2-3 year old plants. Some are single form from plants that wanted to grow sideways and branch.

Mike

All things being equal Preto is the fastest straight up grower that I've seen so far. After a total dieback last winter, growth is about 6 feet this season.
While doing this, production was very poor this year (about three figs) as all the energy was put into stem growth.

I have (3) 1 year celeste in pots. They were barely growing until i changed fert. Was using osmocote. Switched to a water soluble tomato fert and it just exploded in growth.

Hi,
All my in-ground trees grew well this year. My older unknown ufti or Dalmatie might win as both have so many roots and are totally in-ground (no buried bottom-less container).
But my Sultane was really slow this year. Might be root-bound as she is in a buried trashcan... Or not getting enough sun as the garden is crowded.
The slowest is a potted unknown that had total die-back. In July the pot had just a dry stick. I was tossing it and I checked the roots and saw some green buried straws in the dirt  of the pot.
I replaced the medium and now they are 3'' tall ... What a season's growth !
This potted tree was 2' in height last year. She was one of the pots that I put against the garden-house instead of inside - for lack of space inside.
I'll never do that again. They'll all have to fit inside the garden-house in the future.