Hello all! 
I'm located in Boston and have had several trees in the ground for a few years now, and have been growing figs for several years. As I'm prepping to cover my trees for winter this weekend/early next week, I was wondering if anyone in colder zones has already started covering their trees for winter. If you have, what is your technique? I cover mine with burlap, leaves and straw, moving quilts, and tarps - the trees are warmer than me in the winter! 

Here in the chilly south louisiana we are hitting the 30's on Monday. ..its in the mid to upper 70's today

I hate it. It's cold here in Idaho. Wrapped up a couple special trees with old carpet along with tarp over it, roped it like it's being held hostage and a drum barrel over it.

Some of my trees have quite a few green leaves on them still.  However, we are supposed to hit 27 deg F on Sunday night and 28 deg on Monday night.  That will speed things along and perhaps I'll wrap (some of) them in a week or so.

My winterization begins tomorrow.

potted are in the garage and ground trees will be covered tomorrow, trying something new with thick Styrofoam from Home Depot 

Here is my latest method to winterize my in ground figs.
1) I trim the tree to the height of my fence stakes (either 3 or 4 ft)
2) spray animal repellant on the tree (I used moth balls in the past and voles ate the entire tree, so I switched to the repellant), also sprinkle animal repellent on the ground.
3) cover the tree with a paper lawn leaf bag
4) hammer 4 fence stakes around the tree
5) wrap old carpet around the stakes
6) fill with leaves
7) put bag of leaves on top to create a dome top for drainage
8) cover top with a tarp and tie with string

The biggest thing is keeping the water out. You can use a pcv pipe coming out from the bottom for ventilation, just fasten a screen at the end so mice don't crawl inside and eat the bark of the tree. There'll be some rot in the spring, but you can cut it away. Figs that are winterized always need to be pruned again in the spring to clean them up a bit. 

Results of an overwinter experiment done on Unk Lake Spur in the back yard.  After removing several ground level air layers last Fall, the cut barrel was set back around the two remaining plants and compost shoveled in.  It just sat like that all winter.  All the exposed growth was killed and pruned.  All wood covered with compost lived and is now budding. Compost was spread out to form a raised mound to the point where roots were noticed.  Some red clover seeds were scattered on the mound to help as a ground cover.  I feel pretty good about it. Didn't save it all but don't have to start over from roots either! :D