Here's an update on some 2nd year figs as well as this year's UCD cuttings...

First pic is a little blurry of some Cajun Gold figs ripening:

 

Here are some LSU Holliers:



The best looking tree, so far, is a Strawberry Verte I purchased from Jon as cuttings last February.  The few fruits last year I tried were also the best tasting figs I've grown, so far, so I can't wait to taste this year's harvest and there's going to be a LOT of them to taste!  This tree has figs on just about every node:



Here's a closer look at the Strawberry Verte figs:



My LSU Purple that was purchased last year as a tissue culture had been a pretty slow grower, that is, until a couple of months ago when it really started taking off and is just spreading out all over the place.  Frozen Joe did a great video on this variety and commented on it's sprawling nature and I have to agree with his assessment!



There's not that many LSU Purple figs yet, but here's a close-up of the one you see on the lower-left branch of the above pic:

 

As for this year's cuttings, I just moved the two UCR 143-36 (a/k/a "Emerald Strawberry") and one of the Excels to two gallon containers:



 

 

The rest are all still in 4" and 5" containers and I tried to get the labels in the pics, so here's a sampling of some of the others still waiting to be up-potted:

 




    
 

 

This is an RdB in a 1/2 gallon container that was donated by a good F4F friend:

 

I love the shape of the leaves on the UCR 291-4.  You don't get the clearest view from this angle, but you can get a good idea:



 

This is another VdB cutting:



We've been having tropical storms over the last few days (South Florida in the summer!), which is why you see soil on some of the lower leaves in many of the above pics, and my ONLY Black Madeira cutting lost its newest leaf in one of the storms, so that combined with the severe FMV, I'm hoping it's strong enough to keep going:

 

Enjoy the weekend! :D  
   

Great report!  Lots to look forward to this year.

Looks like you are doing everything right.

Looks like you're going great guns!

It would be great to be your neighbor. Especially in zone 10!

Thanks for the good words, guys!

Hershell, I'd love to have you as a neighbor, and the weather is paradise down here, but I'm betting you have a LOT more room to grow and a LOT better soil to work with! ;)

Very nice pics and plants!!

My VdB leaves look exactly like yours, with a lot of curl, deformed leaves.

Great looking plants, Figaro!  Thanks for sharing all those great pics.

I had also been growing a tc LSU Purple.  At 24 months it was 6' tall, 10' wide, and 6' deep...and that was with being transplanted twice and severely pruned a couple of times (the occasional pics I've posted of it do it no justice at all).  After 2 years it hadn't produced a figlet yet, so I recently removed it and sent it to the burn pile.  Given HarveyC's insight (that tc's often won't fruit until a given trunk/branch is 5' long, and that at that point the thing to do is cut off a piece of the fruiting wood and start a new plant from that), and given my limited space in that tunnel, I decided to replace it with figs that are fruiting from the ground up.

I didn't entirely give up on my LSU Purple, though: I took a cutting from it last year, planted it outside, and it survived our sever winter unprotected (probably because I planted it 2' deep), so my hope is that by the fall I'll be able to get a fruiting cutting from it.  (Same story with my tc Black Mission.)

[QUOTE=drphil69]Very nice pics and plants!!

My VdB leaves look exactly like yours, with a lot of curl, deformed leaves.[/QUOTE]

Thanks Dr. Phil.  Yeah, the tip cutting's leaves don't seem to be curled like the bottom cutting and I was hoping it would grow out of it.  How old is your VdB???

Thanks GreenFin and I appreciate the info on your LSU Purple.  I think mine will be OK since, next to the new cuttings, it's basically my youngest fig and does have a few figs showing.  Most of the branches are still pretty thin, so I'm not sure how well they'd support the weight of any fruit this season.

I'm growing mine in a 15 or 20 gallon container (at least for now), so I'm definitely going to need to do some aggressive pruning.

I also have a Black Mission that's about four years old and hasn't fruited yet.  If I was allowed to burn in my neighborhood, it would probably be headed there soon, although I haven't given up on it yet.

I don't believe it was a TC (I purchased it at about 1 year old from Excalibur Fruit Trees.  I chopped it about 2 years ago, and while it has branched out, most branches have only grown maybe a foot or so in two years.  I'd pinch the tips, but almost don't even want any more branching until the main scaffolding gets a little long.

The tree is basically fully wooded, and still no fruit. 

I'm going to chop it way down at the end of the season and see what happens when it starts coming back.  It was disappointing to have it not fruiting when it was one of only two varieties of figs I had.  Now, by the time I see any fruit, I should have enough figs from enough better varieties that the Black Mission will likely be "anti-climactic"!

[QUOTE=GreenFin]Great looking plants, Figaro!  Thanks for sharing all those great pics.

I had also been growing a tc LSU Purple.  At 24 months it was 6' tall, 10' wide, and 6' deep...and that was with being transplanted twice and severely pruned a couple of times (the occasional pics I've posted of it do it no justice at all).  After 2 years it hadn't produced a figlet yet, so I recently removed it and sent it to the burn pile.  Given HarveyC's insight (that tc's often won't fruit until a given trunk/branch is 5' long, and that at that point the thing to do is cut off a piece of the fruiting wood and start a new plant from that), and given my limited space in that tunnel, I decided to replace it with figs that are fruiting from the ground up.

I didn't entirely give up on my LSU Purple, though: I took a cutting from it last year, planted it outside, and it survived our sever winter unprotected (probably because I planted it 2' deep), so my hope is that by the fall I'll be able to get a fruiting cutting from it.  (Same story with my tc Black Mission.)[/QUOTE]