I've been meaning to post a more details about how I'm doin this, but I've become a new daddy recently and haven't had much time...  Here's a couple of shots showing how flexable a fig tree is.  The tree shown has a trunk diameter that's a little above an inch and was a bit over 6' tall.




I went back about a week later to tighten the ropes to bend it even closer to the ground, and to add some leaves and straw.



There are actually 3 trees under that pile! (1 Bugasota & 2 Desert Kings)

oh man, I'm gonna be doing that next year!

I would love to see you try that with some on my bigger trees. 3 and 4" trunks just don't do that.

However, thanks for the pix. Always informative when I get to see how other people do things.

This technique is only ment for keeping an in-ground fig tree in a large bush form.  Basically, you save all the trunks that you can bend and cut off the ones that are too large to bend.  Which means that, I don't care if the branch breaks in the process, since you'll be sawing off if it didn't work out...   This is a lazy way to avoid burrying the whole tree...

ccc1,

Congrats on being a new daddy!

Sue

Congrats CCC1 I too will be a daddy this march woohoo, I seen Adriano do this to his Desert King this year and his tree has 6 or 7 trunks and is over 10 ft in height. A bit of work when their that big he also uses plywood with that pink 1" insulated foam and a tarp over it, must be really hard to bend down trunks the size of your arms when your in your 70's but he still does it.

Thanks, he's a lot of work, but it's all worth it!

Yes, it was Adiano that taught me to protect this way.  Of course, it's not EXACTLY how he does it since I've never actually seen him do it.  If you protect this way, don't forget to shovel some snow over the whole thing to add some extra protection.

Desert King is supposed to be one of the more flexible varieties.  Some even complain that it's laggy, but this lagginess also allows a bigger trunk to be bent down, which allows even better production!  This is my forth season protecting my plants this way.  So far, I haven't had problems with die-back on the protected branches.

I am so glad to live in the south. No heroic efforts to save my plants are required here. That is until I get some citrus.

Bending the tree to the ground provides the most protection against the cold.
From my experience two things I would change from how you did it.
I would add moth balls to keep any critters out. You have just created a perfect winter resort for all the neighborhood mice.
second, I wouldn't use clear plastic, this can cause heat build up and will lead to molding. You can amend that by adding some sort of a pipe, or just using plastic with breathing holes.

Thanks Bass for your suggestions.  I've only been using whatever is available and free.  The plastic used actually has holes all over it, so breathability isn't much of a problem.  I also remove the plastic, but leaving the leaves/straw before the snow thaws to prevent mold problems. 

I haven't encountered the critter problems yet, but I'll make note to add the moth balls for next year.

From post#4 "This technique is only ment for keeping an in-ground fig tree in a large bush form.  Basically, you save all the trunks that you can bend and cut off the ones that are too large to bend.  Which means that, I don't care if the branch breaks in the process, since you'll be sawing off if it didn't work out...   This is a lazy way to avoid burrying the whole tree..."

There's a guy nearby here, in a neighboring town (Endicott NY), who has a tree with about 3" diameter trunk, who does something very much like this.  The guy's name is Gianni (Giovanni), he's quite old and doesn't speak much English.  His tree is planted so that the trunk is at about a 45 degree angle with the ground (when it's "up" in the summer).  The tree is about 6 or 8 feet high at the highest point (trunk+branches are longer than that... they're at a 45 degree angle so that'd be what, something like 8 - 11 feet long).  What he does to bend it down is very gradual: he wraps the top in rope and hangs a couple of cinder blocks off of it (attached by rope around the branches), which very gradually pulls it down.  He told me every few days he goes out and adjusts the ropes, which he has set to the cinder blocks will bottom out without a whole lot of movement.  The whole process of bending it down takes 4 - 6 weeks.  Then once low enough, he piles on insulation and tarps, and weights those down too.  He's done his winter protection for many years.  I have no idea what variety it is, but it's a single trunk at the base, not a bush form.  It seems like a lot of work to me, having to adjust the rope length every few days.

Mike   central NY state, zone 5