Hello and Happy New Year!
I am a newbie to figs. I purchased 2 Hardy Chicago from EBay 2 years ago. They are currently growing in 10 gallon Smartpots. One of the trees produced 3 figs.
They were absolutely delicious!!! The only figs I've eaten came from that famous cookie.
Now I'm hooked. I'm interested in getting maybe 3 more plants to grow in my Bronx backyard with my cherry and blueberry plants.
But for now I am a learner and fig lover.

Welcome!  Glad to hear Hardy Chicago was good.  I bought two from Lowe's this past autumn.  Can't wait to taste them myself.  You're among the nicest people on the web.

Welcome to the forum.

Welcome ! Hardy Chicago was a good one . I have a young one from Lowes as well.

Welcome Smaritza your gonna love it here.........(neighbor)

[QUOTE=Smaritza] I'm interested in getting maybe 3 more plants to grow in my Bronx backyard with my cherry and blueberry plants. But for now I am a learner and fig lover. [/QUOTE]

Ha!  That's how they all start.  85 fig plants later and your wish list will be over 20 new plants.  Welcome!

This is soooo true Bob ...3 more HA! I dont think so never gonna happen !!!   :)

Welcome to the forum.  There are a lot of wonderful "fig geeks" here.  LOL  You will love this place.  

Wow! You guys are great! Thanks for the welcome. But I am not going to be addicted to figs. 5 trees is my limit until I get a bigger yard that is. Lol! Bronx, NY Zone 6

Smaritza I know you really truly seriously believe that. But !!! you will see LOL there's always room they will be in your house before you know it.

Hahahahaha, yeah that's what we all said "I'm not going to be addicted" . Hope ( well maybe not- we are all enablers you see ) you can stick to that.

Looking forward to reading your posts !

Welcome to your new home.

Welcome to the best forum for figs ever! Glad to have you

[QUOTE=Smaritza]Wow! You guys are great! Thanks for the welcome. But I am not going to be addicted to figs. 5 trees is my limit until I get a bigger yard that is. Lol! Bronx, NY Zone 6 [/QUOTE]

Famous last words.

We did a fancy yard landscape project and in the plans was one fig tree. I now have over 25.

Welcome ;)

Smaritza welcome and hope your journey here is pleasant.

Smaritza,

This was my intro on 10/10/12

I just moved to the Houston area this summer and am excited to have a chance to plant some fig trees. My first experience of fresh figs was in Charlotte, NC. I was renting a house and there was a fig tree in the backyard. Come that summer I had the greatest eating experience of my life - fresh figs. I've waited a long time to get somewhere that I could plant figs and reap that great harvest again. So, can anyone in the Houston area (or zone 8b) help me decide which varieties do well in my location. I plan on having 2 plants in the ground and maybe 2 potted plants. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

I currently have 19 cuttings in 1 gallon pots, three or four more in deli containers and also have four more varieties in the frig waiting to start.  My yard is totally planned out and the remainders are going into pots.

So you think you want just three more types???  Resistance is futile.

Welcome Smaritza, from the west coast!  Glad you found this valuable forum.  Lot's of great folks here on the list to offer up a tremendous amount of great information about fig cultivars and fig cultivation.  I, too, wanted to keep my figs to about ten cultivars.  Well, 35 cultivars later, what can I say, it is a very addicting hobby.  Enjoy, and we look forward to your posts and photos :-)

Welcome from me too!  Congratulations on your new hobby! 

Good luck keeping your collection sizeable!  There are so many tricky ways in this forum to suck you in!  Members post photos of delicious figs with a description "so good, my knees buckled..", and of course, you never heard of that one, so it begins!  THEN they post devious ideas like stacking your pots in a vertical pyramid so you can have more in one space..... 

THEN you learn this dance called "the Fig Shuffle."

See?  And then you start looking for property an acre or more in a zone where figs thrive....

I bet you just can't wait to get this party started!  Ooops!  You already did! :-))

Suzi

So I guess, I better find more place to plant figs..  Oh my!!!!! 

Welcome to the forum.

"Welcome to de hotel California!"

I bought a Hardy Chicago last spring @ Lowes, and got about 2 dozen figs off mine!
peachy/apricot flavored * delicious!  now I'm hooked too!
(bought a second Hardy Chicago this past Sept. on clearence for $2.50 @ Lowes)
Half the size.

Dan, $2.50 fig tree! that is insane! You are so lucky.  Our Lowes up here in Washington have NOTHING..the workers don't even know what fig is... one looked at me, like I am from another planet... she insisted I needed to say figure...sad!

Hello and Welcome Maritza!! There are a few members here from the Bronx. I work in the Bronx, up from Jacobi hospital to 243 st and white plains road. Like others have said, it will be hard to keep it to just a "few" trees. you'll find a place for 10 or 20 more potted trees, lol. I bought my trees from someone with 1/4 acres and he had at least 100 potted plants. He still had a lot of room to plant other things (the pots where all along the perimeter of his yard. Do you know which varieties you want to add?? are you interested only in trees to grow in ground (many of those around the bronx, good eatin')?

Jose

Now you guys are getting me super excited about figs I could grow. I think I want to just grow them in pots
( just in case I move they can come with me!). I do tend to go overboard when I want to plant fruits. I guess I better get more smartpots for the fig trees and hold off on the cold hardy kiwi I planned to buy.
What are the best figs to grow in the Bronx? I don't know too many of the names.

I am really enjoying this forum!

Grasa,
HC IS the ONLY fig offered at my local Lowes, and retails for $19.99 here
I happened to find the last one for $2.50 on clearence just before our first hard frost.
Nurseries only offer HC at $30.00 - $35.00 a pop!

Unfortunately, folks here will plant them in ground with no knowlege of winter protection,
and next year will probably have nothing.
Eventually, Lowes will probably stop selling them altogether!

I was told @ Lowe's garden center when I bought my first HC that I needed 2 trees
for cross pollenation! That's how much they know about fig trees here! LOL

I picked up the 2nd (clearence) fig for a little 84 yo Italian lady that owns a junk shop
an hour away from me. We talked about figs, But, she could never get one to grow here.
I bought her one. hopefully, she'll have better luck with the HC. :)

Smaritza, I'm sure fig lovers on your end of the country will approach you with ideal figs.  I might have one or two that would do well where you are, but I live in a Mediterranean climate, and every fig does well here.  Dan got a wonderful bargain from Lowes on that Hardy Chicago.  I wish we had a list here for climates, but that has not appeared yet to my knowledge.

Again, let me extend my welcome!

Suzi

Why is it that it always starts with "I found this tree at Lowes,a Hardy Chicago and now....."
That's how I got hooked,it started with 3 Hardy Chicagos from Lowes,Then 4 more HC's,
then I found the "FIGS4FUN" forum...
The rest is history as they say...

Smaritza,

Happy New Year, Welcome to the forum community. I'm from the Bronx, but am currently in the Catskills. Lots of great Information here. Yes it is addictive. I started with two cuttings from a co-worker last spring (May 2012), now over 30 varieties in 40 plus 5-gallon containers and growing daily. There are many in ground productive fig trees in many neighborhoods of the Bronx, the actual varietal names may not be known by the owners, but they are still tasty. Best of Luck.

Edit: Research fig flavor groupings, you may want to get one good variety from each group. the groups, to my understanding are;

Sugar...Improved Celeste, Eastern Brown Turkey, O'Rourke, Etc.
Honey...Italian Honey, White Marseilles, Atreano, Etc. 
Adriatic...Adriatic JH, Conadria, Green Ischia, Etc.
Bordeaux... VDB, Mission, Vista, Etc.
Dark(Black)... Sals EL, Hardy Chicago, Dark Sicilian, Etc.

Welcome to F4F.  Start slowly, learn a bit as you go, avoid some of the heartbreaks of mistakes by plunging in too quickly, and make a lot of friends along the way.  I have moved pretty slowly for about five years but have now increased things about 400% in the past two months (if they all root okay).  Learn what you like and what will work for you.  Good luck!

Smaritza...You got mail. (I know, lousy English).

We are all laughing, in a very friendly, understanding, gentle way, when we read your declaration about the number of figs that you want to grow.  Trust me....by this coming summer, you will be hanging figs in pots just to squeeze more varieties in your growing area. : ))))))

Many, many varieties will do well and give you great fruit.  Many Bronx members are  "discovering" unidentified, local varieties that will grow unprotected in our area.  Some of these fig trees will be excellent to try.  Friendly neighbors will usually be very happy to give you cutting wood to root.  "ascpete" is the guy to go to if you need information about some Bronx treasures that he discovered, growing locally.

Growing fig trees is fun.  Eating ripe figs from your own trees, is funner.

Good luck, and happy hunting for your special figs.


Frank

You guys are hilarious!!! It's so nice to hear about everyone's support and love of figs. Ever since I got those 2 fig trees, I see figs everywhere. I don't even want that famous cookie. There are 2 houses close to me that have fig trees. I've come close to asking them for cuttings but shied away. You guys are making me bold, so I just might ask. I might order a dwarf black fig from Park Seed and another from Starks. Oh my!! I am being taken over by fig madness!!!

Frank, I have question. Why is it we are in different zones, if we are both in the Bronx? Those maps tell me 6 or 6b. Most of the time I see 6.

Hi Smaritza,
Welcome to the fig forum.  Fig growing is fun.  It has been great seeing lots of new people joining and that was me back in August.  It is the sign of healthy interest group.   I know that I got hooked quickly.

I was interested in how you like the smartpots?  I'm thinking of giving them a try this spring.  Too much heat on the roots has been a problem with my five gallon black plastic containers in the past.  I have seen stressed out potted plants take off once placed in the ground.  I'm limited on space and need to keep some in pots.

Again, welcome to the forum!

Smaritza....

Newer zone maps have The Bronx coastline (Throggs Neck) right on the Zone 6-7 border., and if you check the temp. criteria, you'll see that The Bronx is even higher than Zone 7.  When was the last time that The Bronx ever went below 0 degrees F?  Most of the time we live in Zone 8-9 temps, and on rare occasions we dip down into Zone 7 temps.  If you consider specialized micro-climates within your growing spaces, you can "push" some varieties, and they will grow unprotected, without problems....but, at your risk.  Nature can trump our best efforts.

For the last few years, I have some containerized varieties growing outside my shed, unprotected.  This is like playing Russian Roulette with a containerized fig tree, but so far...OK.  The unprotected trees come from local Bronx trees that grow unprotected.

What part of The Bronx are you from?

Frank

Hi Doug,

I swear by SmartPots.  They are cheap easy to clean if you need to do (I haven't).  My fruit plants seem to love them.  I plan on buying more..

Hi Frank,

I am in the Baychester section of the Bronx..  Close to Gunhill Road.
My fig trees are in a 10 gallon and 15 gallon SmartPot..

I am going to try make some compost to freshen them up a little.  But I haven't started that yet and I guess another post..
Bronx, NYC
Zone 6

Nichole,
Your yard is really nice.  That's the yard mine wants to be when it grows up!!

Smaritza...

You are 10 minutes from my neighborhood.  I will contact you in the Spring.  I know your section very well.

Thanks for the information.

Frank

I love it 

Smaritza     (Ever since I got those 2 fig trees, I see figs everywhere)

Thats exactly how it starts the same exact thing happened to me your now programmed to see fig trees wherever you go.

Here we go guys and gals of the F4F ..WE got another one 

I can't wait until spring. Thanks Frank!! TONYSAC. I do see figs everywhere!, My street is in the middle of two fig tree owners. I plan to introduce myself as soon as it gets warmer or I get braver, whichever come first.

Just do it knock on the door and explain why your there.
Most of the old school owners would love to hear from you and let you take cuttings and maybe even come back for some figs.
I have complete access to 6 local trees at three different houses by the owners they said you can come whenever you want just make sure the dogs aren't in the yard take all that you want.
Its pretty amazing what this little fruit can do for people.

When I get brave, I will let you know it it turned out. But usually when people have gardens with fruits and veggies they are very nice. I think all e nurturing of plants make you relaxed.

hey Smaritza, im a newbie also ....I grew up on bronxdale ave. near morris park now live in westchester....there's plenty of cuttings to be had in the bronx  lots of fig trees around.

Hi deer hunter, I know the area. When it gets warmer, I'll go on a fig hunt around the Bronx. I long for spring and summer.

Smaritza/deerhunter16b...

Look up the threads posted by ascpete, and you will find some very interesting information about the local, Bronx figs that he has come across, growing in yards. 

The Bronx, is loaded with figs, especially in the Morris Park/Pelham Bay/Throggs Neck areas.  Lots of Italians, and some Greeks in these nabes.  Not all of these trees produce great figs.  Most of the growers are very friendly, and are willing to share.  Most will be flattered by the attention and your interest.

Good luck with the hunting.


Frank

I recently got cuttings of an inground tree near haffen park (sp?). I was in the ambulance, it was in the area we usually sit and I saw him getting out of his driveway. I said hello and we got to talking fruit trees, he has a few in the yard. he said its a big red sweet fig and has been unprotected for 15 years but he doesn't know the variety. the tree needs pruning and he said I can come by and have it all if I want it. I'll talk to him about airlayering next time i him, so he can give trees to family and friends.

hi frank, i did collect a bunch of cuttings all of them unknown italian varieties..some that i tasted that were very good..both dark and yellow ...there was one particular that was called a columbra a dark fig which i thought was good.not sure if i spell the name right..i do have 4 trees growing in the ground right now all of them small ....about 2years old ....also bought some cuttings on ebay a hardy chicago and a vdb.

wish list:
Ronde De Bourdeau,Maltese falcon,celeste, LSU purple,Col de Dame Gris and Noir

CTFIGS,
I drive past Haffen Park everyday.  The park by Hammersly,right? I guess I need to get out and walk so I can get closer to figs.

Bronxfigs, 
I know those areas well.. I am going to check them out as well.. 

if you see an ambulance sitting around that park in the mornings stop and say hello, i'm probably in it, lol. there are a few other trees in that immediate area that are grown unprotected and unpruned...those things are monsters!!