Hey guys,

Got pictures so we can better understand what you're talking about?

Sure thing, I'll take a few right now. 

Here are some pictures. My camera's battery is dead so I had to use my crappy iPhone camera. Int the last image, you can see my Brown Turkey's buds are nice and healthy looking while the one in the foreground has dried up buds. 

Sorry no pics

Can you see them now?

Yep

I'm not too familar with getting them bare root, just in containers.

Any time I get bareroot, I soak in water for about 30 minutes to re-hydrate before planting.

I have done this with many fruit trees-pears, apples, and plums.

I am not telling you to do this, but if you want: pinch the bark with your fingernail to break the bark- if it is green and/or milky sap forms its still alive.

Stress may be your culprit

I am not  an expert but I did stay at Holiday Inn Express.

But no really I'm not an expert so maybe those better equipped to answer should be  heard first.

____________
Dominick
Zone 6a-MA

yes.  in the far-right picture, the bud i see still looks green.  otherwise i see no green buds.

can you supply details about how you received the plants, how long they sat around before planting, your process of planting (did you soak roots for ?? period of time, etc.)?

also, where have you kept them after potting?  full shade in a moderately warm environment is good for bare root.

i feel like mulch is usually a bad idea for any freshly potting plants.

I recieved the trees from http://www.willisorchards.com/. They sat around for 3 days, but the roots remained wrapped and moist. I did not think of soaking them because the roots felt very alive and moist the entire time. They are in my basement for now, the temps about 68 degrees and they don't get any direct sunlight. I really hope its just the stress of being shipped. It would be a waste if they died. 

Andre, Dominick & Jason gave some great advice. If they are still green under the bark and flexible as you stated , I think they are fine. Just be patient---figs are tough. I'm no expert either, just a regular guy interested in growing figs. What varieties did you order from Willis? I have a Panache and a Violette de Bordeaux from them and a couple others that turned out to be Celeste. Good luck to you.

Tim,

[QUOTE=AndreD1101]

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UGH, thats what I get for not doing my research. Thanks for the heads up, Jason. Willis has a one year guarantee on the stuff i ordered so if they turn out to be something else, i'll return them. 

you typically won't find out in time. 

gardenwatchdog is your friend.... http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/6348/

Willis is also Paradise Palm Co.

you won't find TyTy Nursery (aka Aaron's nursery and 5mil other names) in there under the name TyTy b/c they supposedly filed suit against them for defamation (or some BS like that) and DG removed them to cover their tail.  here is their report as Aaron's, though:

http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/6992/

I find it interesting, Willis Orchards claims insistently that they have nothing to do with TyTy, but last time I looked around, buried deep in something, I found the "Willis" name on some registration document related to TyTy.  "Willis Foundation" or something along those lines.

I think it's just a general no-no to buy fruits & nuts from any nursery in south/central Georgia. 

And don't ask me how this is possible, but ...

Aww man. I really hope these figs turn out to be the varieties I purchased. I have a year to return them so I hope they fruit this year so I can double check there variety. Never gonna order from Willis again. Next time I find an online nursery I'm gonna ask you guys about it. 

Do you guys think my figs even have a chance of surviving this bud drop? Sounds like Willis sells crap stuff. 

Give them a few weeks to see whether they bud.  You never know ...

Well I'll tell you this, Figs are pretty good survivors to abuse and neglect.

I have taken my cuttings, pinch this off, cut that off, sprayed this, pulled it out, checked it out, over watered and under watered them.

I have only lost 2 cuttings out of 80+ so far. Last year, I had a tree drop all its leaves and breba, only to come back with a small main crop and new leaves.

In the fig world, patience is your enemy.

____________
Dominick
Zone 6a-MA

Andre, yes, I was very pleased with the trees sent, but that was 4 years ago. I don't know what they are doing now. The Black Jack and Italian Everbearing I ordered turned out to be Celeste which is one of my favorites, still. For Online Nurseries, stick with Burnt Ridge, Rolling River, One Green World, Edible Landscaping, and Raintree. There are many more that are good, I'm sure, but have no experience with them. Then there are all the Forum members that sell trees(Encanto, Trees of Joy, Herman, Joe Morle, and others I can't remember right this moment) that may be your best bet at getting the true varieties that you want. I'll take some pictures of my four Willis trees and post them tomorrow. Again, good luck with your trees.

Andred1101,

Willis or not you need to look at the bright side.
You didn't pay the big bucks for them. That we know because many of us been there including myself.

Edit: My point about the price is to use the trees as Lab Rats. Didn't pay a fortune so experiment.
Use these fig trees as a learning tool. Hands on training so to speak. Tweak this adjust that.

Study, research, pay attention and absorb everything that is being said to you.
It's not as difficult as it sounds.

Heck, I'm rooting mine and I'm well over 1200 miles away from home. With assistance of course.

Learn the basic fundamentals and you will be fine.

BTW,
The trees will be fine. Still a bit too cold and they are staying asleep a bit longer. They will be growing before you know it.
One more thing,
Willis fig trees may not be true to their names but they a very healthy! And that's is a known fact. Mine were among the healthiest in my collection.

Good luck

Dominick, Tim and Rafed: thank you for the words of wisdom and reassurance. I have been gardening for sometime so my patients is good. I was just worried because I've been growing figs for only a year now. I'll let nature do its thing and wish for the best. Thanks again guys! 

[QUOTE=nypd5229]
In the fig world, patience is your enemy.
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Is this a typo?  I would think you would mean patience is your friend.  If you hadn't the patience, you would have axed your trees that came back to life after waiting....

I can on speak from my experiences so here goes.  I have had great success with bare root fig trees.  However, I've always soaked the bare root in water or Ferilome Root Stimulator first for at least an hour, THEN plant or pot the tree.  And in a couple of days, BOOM, out come the buds and leafs.

What I mean by patience is your enemy is that when you think something isn't rooting or may be dying, you may want to look, pull it out, throw it out.

Waiting and wait some more before you give in to temptation.

I have cuttings that rooted in no time- Abebereira, Fico Preto, Brooklyn White. But some looked like they were doing nothing for weeks on end only to pull out and see root initials. When I had thought it may be doing nothing, I had something.

Being new to rooting, in the beginning I thought I was doing everything wrong, from storing in the fridge to cleaning with soap and bleach.

When I tried to root in a bag, having that be an epic failure with mold almost made me give up completely until I used water to start.

You might say Patience was my friend but everytime I saw nothing happening, it almost came to an end.

Dominick

By the way, I have the patience of a 5 yr old-Everything, Now Now NOW!! ha

Hi Andre, here are the pictures of my four Willis trees. They are in their fourth season. I pruned them back hard this winter, but as you can see they are coming back well. Very healthy trees.Like I said before, the Black Jack and Italian Everbearing both turned out to be Celeste. The Panache and Vdb are good and the Vdb is about the best tasting so far for me.

Someone mentioned here about fig plant resilience for survival.
Every case may have different background but here is my experience about good fig plant resilience in one case (but I also have some not so good experiences):
http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=3718364

I also want to share my thoughts on how I will proceed in future in cases where I receive a bare root plant where the roots are in doubtful shape (rotten, dried, not enough etc...) and that is to take a cutting or two (depending on size) and start rooting the cuttings as well if the stem wood has some life in it.

In the case of AndreD I will suggest patience while taking proper care of the plants. It may eventually have shoots from some nodes, sooner or later.

I remember I purchased about four or five bare rooted fig trees from One Green World.
All but one of them took off in a matter of short period of time.
The one fig just sat in its' pot doing nothing. I called OGW telling them about the fig in question and it was dried up from the top.

If anyone ever dealt with OGW then you know their prices and their high shipping charges.

Was told they don't guarantee their product so basically I was stuck.

However, the fig tree did start to grow but that was almost a month and half or two behind the others it came with.

Lesson learned.

.......................................................................................................

Here we are dealing with Willis Orchard.

Fact,
Their reputation is some what smeared by the fact they don't ship what you ordered.
Their products are reasonably priced, they ship healthy plants and will honor their shortages with out a problem.

But all this is irrelevant for the simple fact they don't ship what you ordered!

I just can't seem to figure it out.

Thanks for all the pictures and info guys!  I check on them today and one of them is starting to push out its leaves. I'm not really concerned anymore, figs are fighters. They should do fine. I've learned my lesson and I will not deal with Willis ever again. You live and you learn :).