Good day and Happy New Year!  Today I finished wrapping up all my in ground fig trees and storing most of my container trees in doors.  Every day, I kept saying I needed to wrap up my trees before the cold weather set in.  Well, both Saturday and Sunday it was 65 degrees! Go figure!  And tonight the temps are suppose to drop down to 19.  So, I spent all of Saturday and Sunday wrapping my trees in Shrub jackets.  I got 62 planted that I wanted to cover.  I removed the following and placed them in pots, Dark Portuguese, Black Mission, and an unknown that never fruited.  They were struggling in their current location and I needed to check the roots and see what was going on.  Turns out they were in hard pan clay and the roots were fine.  I also removed and burned 2 Brunswick fig trees. 

I had 20 30 gallon size bags of dry leaves.  I went thru them in no time.  My neighbour 1 street over has 7 or 8 huge oak trees and every week his boys were out side racking and bagging leaves and placing them on the curb.  Well in our area, the city will take your leaves and garbage for free if they are place out on the curb in one condition.....the leaves have to be sealed in clear bags and open if in black bags.  My neighbour had over 50 bags of leaves in black bags and they were tied up.  So, for about one month now, the did not take his leaves.  Bad for him, good for me....hehehehe.  I made over 8 trips over to his house taking all of his leaves.  A win-win for both of us!

His leaves were perfectly dry and worked out like a charm!  The shrub jackets come in 4 sizes, small, medium, large and custom.  I used all except custom.  After I tied up each tree, I tied the bottom, then the sides and the top.  Next came the stuffing each with leaves.  After 2 days of doing this I was wondering; how difficut would it be to make these?  Why not give it a try!  So, I chose not to prune my in ground Negronne but place a shrub jacket around the bottom half and make another jacket out of burlap for the top.  I found a piece of burlap laying around.  Bought a Handy Stich from eBay for 5 bucks, bought some shoe laces from Wally world and BOOM, I was in business!  Below is a before and after picture of the jacket I made.  I made that jacket in about 15 mins.  My wife watched me in awe!  Just said, "man you sure are crazy about them darn figs!"  Don't laugh guys!  Don't you do it!  But, yes I did make this.  My wife did show me how to knot the end of each seam.  But look at the picture below....I think it turned out pretty good.  Comment?

Well, here is a picture how it looks on the tree.  With all those shrub jackets in my yard, my yard looks like I've been invaded by aliens!  (remember the movie Aliens?) Oh well, it kept me busy and I had fun!  Enjoy the pics and HOW BOUT THOSE FIGS!!!!!!

Great job! Thanks for sharing

Are your fig trees small or is it an optical illusion?  I was picturing 10-20' trees being covered, but these look like they are 3'!

Do you get fruit on them at this size?

Jo-Ann

Yes, I prune my trees down to 3 feet or less. Some trees are naturally dwarf and many of these trees were planted last year. And there are 3 sizes used. Thanks,

also, the pics don't show my tallest trees, Smith, Atreano, Marselles white, Byadi, Celeste, and a few others. plus the trees are tied down inside the jacket. My tallest trees were 6 foot, cut down to 4 for the large bag. Hope this helps.

No doubt , your wife is right Dennis.
Nice work.

They look downright toasty! Great job!

One thing i bet your in tip top shape or sore.  ; )
Your gonna have a lot of figs when they come in !

You have to be on the watch, Dennis. They look cozy for the figs but possibly rodents may find them very cozy too.

seeing your wife yelling at you must have been a funny kodak moment ;-) , nonetheless looks like it was very hard work  not to mention the stylish pattern 

Dennis..   WOW! Excellent idea.

 All, that I did was Chicken wire cages and filled with leaves and pine needles.

Your method looks safer. Thanks for the information.  Fredfig

Looks great Dennis, a layer of mylar inside the burlap would bump up the insulation value even more. I might give that a try next year.

Thanks for all the kind words and support guys.  It was a 3 Advil night for 2 days straight but well worth it.

My largest trees, Smith, Celeste, RdB, Alma, Don Fortis, Strawberry, Atreano, Marseilles White and Byadi were grew over 5 feet last year.  Last year, I did not cover Atreano and Celeste and they did fine.  And the others were not placed in the ground until April of 2011.  All are over 2 years old....some are not that tall but thick and strong.  I wanted to test the large bags on the large trees and see if I could get them inside.  And I did.  Atreano was a monster!  Mine grew into a beautiful vase shape but I want to control the grown now before it gets out of control.  I got so many figs from my Atreano!  Some of my container trees grew over 7 feet last year!  I rolled them inside my garage yesterday.  I have not pruned them yet, but I will next month.  With the 65 degree weather last week, my NdC and Late Black started brebas and leaving out!  I will remove the brebas.  I do have one in ground Desert King.  It's a pretty big tree but only got 2 figs from it last year but those figs were out of this world good.  I am hoping that this year I get 10 or more figs from it.  Time will tell.

I don't have a rodent problem in my orchard yet.  We have several hawks and plenty of cats that stroll through my orchard daily. Every day, I go out in my orchard and tap on the jacket to see if it moves.  Plus I'll take my dog with me.  He will tell me if something is inside or not.  He's suppose to be my squirrel chaser.  He's a Maltapoo and only around 8 months old.

Yes, Dennis, your yard does look very pretty, indeed!

Well done Dennis.  I see we are on the same schedule.  I wrapped my trees up yesterday with multiple layers of garden row cover.  Even though my climate is warmer than yours all 4 of my trees froze down to the ground last winter because of one unusual cold night in January.

I'm using the same shrub jackets here in 6b/7a.  Hope they work well for you!  I hope they hold up for several years.

Nice work Dennis!  Your post made me remember not to donate my husband and son's shirts that are made of thick material to Goodwill...because I need to use them as "covers" for all my wine carboys.  Back to your homemade cover...my Mom has a huge ROLL of burlap that she was going to use for a weaving project, I may buy it from her and start making covers. 

What are the dimensions for the covers you have made thus far based on what size tree?

Thanks in advance, Sara

Thank you Susan. Hey Tim, every year aroundvthis time we get cold (20 and below) weather. Three years ago, I planted 3. 3rd old black mission trees side by side. They were 2 foot tall. Every year each tree died to the ground but grew back. Well last year I covered the tallest one with a thin layer of burlap and it survived but struggled.last year. So a few weeks ago, I dug it up and placed it in a large container. The other BM died. In my area, temps can get down to the single digits and I don't want to lose a tree if I can protect it.

I have high hopes for the jackets. I bought extra large jackets for future use as my trees get larger. Cheers,

That is some serious fig devotion, I'm impressed! Maybe you should figure a way to patent your design and make a little money selling them.

Dennis,
Have you had any problem with the wind catching the bags and acting like a sail?
I wrapped my little trees last year in a similar fashion but I am on top of a hill and the wind was not friendly.  My tips where rubbed off. 
So this year, I did cardboard boxes held down with large rocks. 

Sorry for being "tardy to the party on my own post"....I got kinda carried away on other things...now to respond to some comments.
@ Alan, hey Alan it got down to 19 degrees in Charlotte that day!   I was worried.   So, I snuck 9 of my LSU trees in my basement.  They were outside tucked down in the corner of my 5 foot wall completely out of the wind.   I was worried they might not survive that temp.  Two days later, I toted them back outside.  But I love our weather!  We have four complete months of seasonal weather.  The scarry time comes in Spring every year when  we get another freeze around Easter. 

@GoodDaughter, I did think of a "ShrubCoat" since ShrubJacket was already patented.  But seeing them at Tuesday Morning stores made me think that maybe there isn't a market for these.  I guess I could try making a few with my design and submitting a patent.  I guess I need to pray about this and see what God says.  :)   For those who don't know, Tuesday Morning is a first stage close out store.  I love shopping there. 

@Cathy, wind is not a problem for me.  I think if you stuff the jacket snug with leaves you won't have any problems.  Over a few days the leaves will settle down and you will have to go back and add more leaves.  Also, if the tree is tall like my Negronne, you may have to tie it down.  If you zoom in on the last picture, you can see that I did tie that tree down.  It was leaning very badly due to the height of the bag on top.  I didn't want the tree to break and I know it could.  Cathy, be careful using solid structures, you don't want to induce too much moisture or you will have a lot of mold on your hands.  I chose these jackets because they are decoratve and breatheable.  My other option was to use chicken wire and leaves but I did not want the leaves to blow away or get too wet from the rain.

Three jackets comes in a pack at $12.99 for small, $14.99 for medium and $17.99 for Large.  They make a custom size for trees 7 feet....you only 2 in a pack and they are $7.99 a pack.  I don't have any custom jackets.   My goal is to keep my trees at 5 feet a year.  I have over 60 trees in my orchard.  Most are under 4 foot tall and are over 2years old but still quite small. But I did double my purchase buying 10 extra packs of the large size.  I  started buying these in August 2011.  Some stores did not have the sizes I wanted.  We have over 6 TM stores in a 25 mile radius.  So over the last 6 months, I drove around to each to get the sizes I wanted.  Cheers!

Couldn't resist. Mine would look more like this.

great sense of humore there Strive

bump

So, maybe add some buttons and a carrot for a nose?

Nice work! Are you doing it again this year?

I'd fire your gardeners.  Are they too lazy to take those bags of leaves to the curb on leaf collection day?  : )

Ha ha, very funny Jon. Every body wants to a comedian! Hahaha Not this year Bob. This year, all will be naked as a jail bird! Interesting to see which trees survive. By being in zone 8, all should be fine. Steve, I guess I should fire myself b/c I'm the gardener. Last year, I ran out of leaves and had to steal about 20 bags from my neighbors 2 streets over. They didn't mind. They had 60 bags on the curb and the city only takes 10 bags every 2 weeks. It was a pain in the but to remove all those leaves when Spring came! Glad I''m not covering them up this year.

Dennis, just curious - why not? 

Also, could you post pictures of your naked trees?  I'd love to see them!

stand by Jo-Ann

I'm curious about the experience of others with Shrubjackets.  The ones that I used last winter totally fell apart when putting them on this winter.  I still tied up the trees but I'll have to totally throw them away next spring.  I bought some new ones this year (not knowing that the others had gotten so weak) and now I'm regretting it big time.  I'm thinking of writing the company and asking for a refund.  For the price, I think they should hold up for at least 4-5 years.

@snaglpus, was this your experience as well?  I seem to remember you saying something in a previous thread.

The big question now becomes, what's an easy way to overwinter trees using leaves and some kind of tarp materials.  I was thinking about buying reflective tarps and somehow pinning them down, but that may allow for too much heat buildup.

The concept of the jacket is great but I don't think they were meant to withstand months of harsh winter and beaming rays of sunlight.  They are breatheable and the decor is nice but after one year, mine just decomposed to dust.  I ended up tossing 98% of mine. 

Now, per the US ARg, my area is considered 8a.....a warmer climate.  So this past winter, I did not winterize my trees.  And so far we've only had temps drop in the mid to low 20s twice this month.  I think these jacket are meant to only be used for one or two night of frost and that's it!  If I need to protect my trees in the future, I will just make mine out of pure burlap and shoe strings like the one above.  But you have to stuff the jacket with leaves of they will blow right off the plant.  However, they do work though.

Greetings Dennis and gang Good posts! I have similar neighbors with lots of extra bagged leaves who just put them out for recycling. This past Fall I went around and gathered many of these bagged treasures up in anticipation of winter protection for my in ground Hardy Chicago. Once it started to stay evenly cold at night and day, I built a 2 x 4 x 8 ft tall wooden frame and wrapped it in plastic mesh netting and placed this around the gently pruned tree then filled it with leaves. ( First i heavily mulched the root bed ). Here's one picture of the almost completed project ( i eventually covered the very top with a small blue tarp to keep rain from soaking it), one before I started filling with dry leaves, and two from early Summer when it was lush green and full of figs:

Well, it won't be long before it will be time to start planning for Fall and Winter.  Over the past 2 seasons, we've been hit hard with 25 degree temperatures in November, but the rest of the year was just blah and mild.  I don't know what the farmer's almanac says about this winter but I'm planning now.  In 2011, I bought a bunch of these shrub jackets and they worked great.  However, they only last for one year.  The sun, rain and cold just decomposed the fabric.  They did not start ripping until I removed them.  But the good news is, my trees had zero die back!  Last year, 2012, I did not use any winter protection.  Two orchard trees were hit hard but came back in full force this year.  They were Martin's Unknown and 187-25.  My Black Maderia, brown turkey not had green growth in November and it got burned, same for Noire de Caromb.  These trees are in containers and grew back fine but I learned they are very sensitive.

So, this year I'm clearing out my shed for these guys.  The jacket I made out of burlap worked great.  I think I will make 10 of these and use them this year.  I think I got 4 of these jackets leftover but I like mine better.  It lasted longer!

Would hemp fabric last longer?

Yes it would.

Ok, the fig jackets worked great 2 years ago. But they are not tough enough to last another year. Last year, I did not winterize any orchard trees. And with crappy weather this year, I only got a few figs from some of my rare trees which isn't that bad. But years ago, I had gobs and gobs of figs. We're suppose to have a harsh winter this year and it starts tonight. Temperatures will fall to 19 degrees tonight. Depending on the age of the trees, temps that low can kill a fig tree. So, this year I decided to make 2 jackets and use a new one I had saved 2 years ago. The red ones are 2 yds of burlap from walmart. I sewed the ends and after tying up the trees, I installed the jackets. The tall red one is De La Senyora. The fat red one is I-258. And the green one is Smith. The jackets are stuffed with dry leaves. Enjoy! HOW BOUT THOSE FIGS!!!!!!!! [URL=http://s605.photobucket.com/user/snaglpus/media/image_zps76a71831.jpg.html][IMG]http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt134/snaglpus/image_zps76a71831.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s605.photobucket.com/user/snaglpus/media/image_zpscfd9ef16.jpg.html][IMG]http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt134/snaglpus/image_zpscfd9ef16.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s605.photobucket.com/user/snaglpus/media/image_zps7e4e7d6f.jpg.html][IMG]http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt134/snaglpus/image_zps7e4e7d6f.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Can't see any photos.  Looks like you lost your photomojo again.

Try again Bob.

You have done a great job.I have also installed a bird net over my orchard and laid some fence posts along the edge to hold it in place.

Looks great super job!
 
I wonder if rodents are turned off by the leaves?  I know if it was straw it would be a magnet for rodents.

I don't have a rodent problem.  At least not yet!  I go out daily and tap on the jackets.  Plus we have several wild cats that roam the neighborbhood.  I find them out in my orchard seeking mice.  They will jump in the jacket to get a mouse.  Those store bought jackets only worked for one season. The harse wind and bitter cold decomposed the jacket badly.  Those I made are still in tact and holding up strong.  But I do have to go back and add more leaves from time to time.

One season, I covered all 66 of my orchard trees with the green store bought jackets.  It was no fun removing all those leaves in March!  Today, I only cover 3 trees.

After the brutal cold weather last year, I am considering using some of these again this year.  But only on a few trees.

It's a real task removing and disposing all the leaves!

I just ordered three of the large size before I read in this thread that they only last for one year - oh well!  I have about 8 trees that i put in ground in April and are now 6-7 feet tall.  I would have to trim off so much wood to get them down to 3 feet high and fit into the bags.  I will minimally mount up shredded leaves > 1 ft deep around the base.  Beyond that I will need to address each tree on a case by case basis.  Some that have strong reputations for cold hardiness (like Mt. Etna types) may not get any protection besides the mulch.  Others may end up looking like "aliens".

Bob, they do work very well. BUT......like you siad, they only last for one season. I read online somewhere where this lady said, she hates them because the wind blew hers aaway! I laughed! She didn't install them right. You have to tie them first at the base of the tree, then stuff the jacket with leaves and tie the bag up. I do lik them but the one I made out of burlap is still holding up strong!

Good Job Dennis:You are going to have a lot of brebas fruits next Summer.
Make sure you cover the trees you know will produce Breba first.

I haven't found problems with rodents, the way I am avoiding them so far is waiting for a hard freeze before covering, around -5 Celsius or so.  This encourages the rodents to find a warm home before covering.  Mounding roses is where this method was recommended for me and I just applied it to the figs.

bump.

Last year's Artic Blast of 4 degree weather still a few of these trees.  Those heavily mulched  and wrapped did best.

Dennis,
Looks good enough for me Ill take 80! lol

The year I used those jackets, I ended up with a great breba crop.  I've got 65 trees in my orchard but I did not use the bags this year.  In my climate, the bags only last one year.  It's expensive but worth it!

bump.  its time to start planning winterizing your fig trees!!!!