I have a 2nd year cutting that is sending a shoot straight up. How large growing is this variety under the best conditions? I would like to plant it in the ground, and like any newbie, optimize my fig harvest in the next couple of years, quality and quantity. I'm hoping that by insulating sufficiently, winter damage can be limited.
Is it better to keep it low and bushy, or let it develop a trunk, if I can keep the trunk from dying back every winter?
Thanks,
Rick in CT

   I let mine grow as a bush in ground. Some years it dies back to nothing, other years not much die back at all. Last year was almost nothing and there are some nice thick branches on it now. Each one of them has been pinched and its got a nice load of figs this year. Year 7 I think.

Just wanted to add, 2 years ago it died back to the ground. Last year the shoots grew 4' and put out figs and every one of them ripened last year.

In the center of that mass is a bunch of new shoots. If I wanted to I could do a hedge 20' long by bending those shoots down and burying them.. Next year more shoots would come up and I could just keep doing that until the hedge was as long as I want.

let it grow as a bush. better chance to survive the winters with less injury. And the idea of a fig hedge is a great one, it would be very easy to pull off.

Hi,
IMO, 3 to 5 trunks is better.
I have a post about the 80Liters trashcan (with bottom removed) protection method.
Keep those 5 trunks close so that you can put the trashcan over them like a sleeve.
You can fill the trashcan with loam for a better protection.
So far so good here with that method !
Good luck !

Hi JDS, I used a similar method on my noid fig:it was only 2' × 2', so wrapped it with opaque plastic (old peat moss bags, split), then poured in a 4" layer dry peat moss mixed with red chili pepper to keep vermin out. I filled the area to the top with more dry peat moss, and laid a sheet of plastic over the whole thing, weighed down around the edges with stones and soil.
After substantial snow, I piled a good layer of snow on top for added insulation. Come March, after an unusually mild winter no lower than 10°F, there was almost no damage at all. Hopefully this setup will survive the acid test of -10°F, which is more typical.

Has anyone tried burying a horizontal branch and cutting off the vertical branches at ground level each year? Gene? JDS?

Scott

I have never done this, but I have read of others doing so. If I were doing it, I would cut the verticals back to about 2 1/2 ft each year and place a trashcan or two over them for protection. That way you would have more mass to start with in the spring.

If you google "japanese fig growing step over" you will find pictures of the way they something similar.

I did about a 30 inch high trunk with 3 or 4 14 to 18 " second level branches and then will cut the third level to about two or three nodes at the end of the growing season. Last year I put in a bunch of garlic cloves to deter the rodents, and then filled the 50 gallon drum with mulch. Both my Hardy Chicago and Ischia did fine with that method. This year I have added about 12 more varieties in ground to try out the barrels on.

ckmach1973 do you have any pictures of your trees pruned this was especially before they leaf out completely? How late in the growing season could/should these be pruned?

I do my pruning after the leaves drop in October. I'll have to take pictures then.

If you think of an inside out umbrella, that is the general shape of it.

Hi ScottA,
That kind of shaping wouldn't work for me in ground in my Zone7. The trees don't have the time to both regrow the stems and set fruit on time.
I did a test this year:
I trimmed half of my biggest in ground Dalmatie and half of my biggest ufti figtree.
Obviously, all the branches that I shortened had to make new buds and grow new stems.
On those branches, there are very few maincrop figs (no brebas at all), and they won't have the time to ripen. The figs did appear later on those branches when comparing them to the not pruned stems.
Those branches should produce next year though, and I need to keep my trees short - so I have to prune them. My plan is to prune every 5 years.

Rick,
 Where in CT are you?
I'm in New Milford.