How a Pittsburgher wraps his fig trees for the winter.  Two 20 foot tall trees tied down towards each other and wrapped with leaves, tarps, plywood, and a heating chamber. 


More detailed information here:

http://theitaliangardenproject.com/wrapping-a-fig-tree-savinell-style/Save

Alan that is a very impressive job wrapping your trees. Great website and very interesting history of your family trees. Nice story about preserving important trees and thanks for tips on wrapping. Those trees will stay well protected.

Thank you for the great information regarding wrapping a fig tree.  Will use this knowledge next year in Dayton, Ohio.

Tad

Very Nice
that's dedication

That is quite amazing.  Wish that would work for Ottawa weather.

With all that work comes a bounty of figs...

Indeed a good example to follow for cold zone guys. thanks a lot!

Very impressive! How do you tie the branches of the two trees together? I expect you must break some by accident as there are hundreds of buds involved...

Nice!  So if I understand right, you are solidly in Z6 where low winter temps average sub-zero (-5 to -10 F).  And you've had damage once in 10 years.  In that time, the sole heat source during cold nights has (so far) been the earth.  You give us all hope. 

Have you had any issues with mice with this setup? I'm guessing that you would've noted if so, beautiful looking trees by the way!

I am also interested in the mice issue. Do they get in and nest, chew the bark?

Very nice job!

I used to do a very similar method for my 22 yr old trees.  Then in 2013 winter a wind storm ripped the covering right off 3 of them in the middle of the coldest winter ever -18-24C for the whole month.  The trees are in an open field and one tree died completely but the other 2 had their 10" trunks killed to the ground and they bounced back and are producing nicely again.

After that I changed my method a bit in that I cut the trees back to 2-3', let grow into a bush with more stems and then cover. 
Little chance of the wind uncovering them now and it has not affected their main crop production size.  Since before many figs would be left unripened but now the trees are more manageable and I can pinch the shoots and thin the fruit as required so I get more ripe figs.