Hi all! Hope that your fig trees are doing well this late spring season. For those of you that have inground trees in zone 6 and 7, please post pictures of them. Would be great to see how fellow figs are coming along. Here are my two ... The left is s Celeste and the right is a Spanish Mission. The tiny one in the container in the middle is a Kadota, and keeping it as a container tree because it requires a long growing season to ripen although I don't expect any figs from it this year. Kadotas are such sweet tasting figs, but they just don't do well inground in zone 6 unfortunately.

Those are beautiful trees. Hope you get lots of figs.

j have i lot of IN GROUND fig trees but i am in Zone 9b

Your trees look happy. Looks like you picked the right varieties for in ground.

Beautiful in ground Trees! Congrats!

They look great. Are these the ones with heat lamps on them this past winter during that cold spell?

I've got 25 varieties (mostly unknowns I've collected) that are scattered around the perimeter of the garden. They are mostly still in pots until I have the time to plant them. I'll post pics later. FYI I stopped by a carpet place and asked if they had extra carpet padding (to wrap and winterize the figs). The guy told me to take whatever I wanted. Well I'll be seeing them in the fall. All you northerners like me, can't go wrong with free stuff!

Hey, northern growers!

Here's an in-ground Chicago Hardy, zone 6A, OH. This is its 2nd season of growth since it survived its first winter with very little die-back. I believe it got down to -4F, but didn't stay below 0F for more than a week. It was wrapped up with an agricultural-grade white, winter blanket. It has quite a few shoots with figlets coming in, about the size of a pea. The caliper on this tree was probably no more than 1.0" or 0.875", and it was planted up against an eastern-facing wall (30 ft. tall) that gets excellent morning and afternoon sun. It's probably about 4 or 5 ft tall. Next, I'd like to plant Sal's EL, Ronde de Bordeaux, and Marseilles Black VS in the same general location.

Thanks everyone. Had a mild winter and wrapped them as well.

In ground trees in zone 6 and growing fine many in 22nd year. 
Here are some pics of;
(Ciccio Fico Nero(aka Ciccio Nero), Dalmatie Pino, Fico Bianco, Bolzano Nero, Desert King);

These are the only 2 I have in ground. Salem dark and a Malta black. Both planted about two years ago and have grown back from the ground each year. Not much to look at just yet. Haha

The only photos that I've got from yesterday. I can see small buds but I don't know if they are new shoots or figs. I wish for us very hot and dry summer. 

Hi,
A bit of sun from a Zone7. This is healthy longue d'aout.
First time getting the brebas. The tree is in her third leaf by me.
 

Here are my plants zone 6B:

Nice pictures everyone.

I suspect that it's an uphill battle every winter in your zone, when the freeze keeps trimming the trees. But frankly I'm surprised that I do not see any thick or large trunks despite the fact that some trees are many years old and in ground.

[QUOTE=Sas]Nice pictures everyone....I do not see any thick or large trunks despite the fact that some trees are many years old and in ground. [/QUOTE]@Hi Sas, plenty of large stumps in my place showing the legacy of winter growing.
The 4th photo in my posting is Fico Bianco mother plant, the 2 stumps (20 yrs old) on the left were killed in Jan 2014 when they got uncovered in a wind storm in the record 2013/2014 winter. 
This year 2nd year since they are recovering well and I should start to get many figs again.

pino and herman2, your trees look great! Where abouts are you? North Central Jersey is Zone 6b. I bought these two at a local garden center last spring and 3 gallon pots. The Kadota didn't fare so well so I put in a pot and will overwinter inside because I think I need a longer growing season and doesn't do well covered up. You both have a lot of trees and it must've taken a lot of time to cover them for the winter!

I would love one more tree of the same size to put in ground that is called Hardy, but all of the ones I can find at the garden centers are small or tall and lanky and very expensive because they are in larger pots even though they look like hell.

No figs as of yet. I am hoping they will start producing soon.

The large tree on the left is a peach tree. My grandfather planTed it seven years ago and grew it from a seed. It was about a foot tall. It fell over aboutbseven or eight times from hurricane Irene and Sandy and some other storms, but I kept sticking it back up. Two years ago it took off and became extremely sturdy so that it didn't need to be staked any longer, and there were a lot of peaches but something took them all in the middle of the night and cleared out the tree before they were even ripe. Last year it produced hundreds of peaches and the birds started going at them so I netted it. Netting is seriously the only thing that works. The peaches were so excellent and worth the six year wait, LOL. Well worth it. This year it's a bit bigger and I'm sure it will be quite a challenge netting it again. I was a bit worried when we had that cold snap in early April but luckily there's quite a bit of peaches on the tree although I'm not sure if there are as many as last year. My grandpa finally got to taste a few last year right before he passed. Now, I can't ever give up on the tree.

[QUOTE=figgi11]pino and herman2, your trees look great! Where abouts are you? North Central Jersey is Zone 6b. I bought these two at a local garden center last spring and 3 gallon pots. The Kadota didn't fare so well so I put in a pot and will overwinter inside because I think I need a longer growing season and doesn't do well covered up. You both have a lot of trees and it must've taken a lot of time to cover them for the winter! I would love one more tree of the same size to put in ground that is called Hardy, but all of the ones I can find at the garden centers are small or tall and lanky and very expensive because they are in larger pots even though they look like hell. No figs as of yet. I am hoping they will start producing soon.[/QUOTE]Hello MD,
I am near Niagara Falls (Canadian side) (Zone 6). 

It definitely takes too much time to cover but less time then maintaining containers.

Try different ways each year for covering but have settled on a removable wood box (made of doors) for the big trees 16'x21'x3'.  For the other trees I was inspired by jdsfrance and use 55 gal barrels over the tied/trimmed trees filled with dry soil, compost or wood chips and the barrels covered with burlap as insurance.  Any exposed limbs need to be protected from rodents. 

When my fig trees get big and start not to do well in containers I put them in ground.  But I only leave them over winter when they are fully mature >4yrs.
Only cold tolerant and early ripener varieties will grow well in ground in Zone 6.

I am in Willingboro NJ

Sas:Winter 2014 and 15,were brutally cold and killed most trees to ground or very close to,on East coast,it did not matter how old or how thick the plants were.

So what you see is new trunks started in Spring 2015.!

That's great. Huge fig tree in ground (Zone 6) That sounds very good for me. :)
I am back in home so I can show some of my fig tree. Figs grow in cold and cloudy climate of Central Europe. 

Michurinska-10 (One branch survived my winter without any protection) 

Panache

 

Unknown

Herman, Pino, Thank You for clarifying this. Found this article. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/nyregion/a-fig-tree-dies-in-brooklyn-and-in-other-boroughs.html?_r=0 When I was in Brooklyn NY years ago, which is zone 6b, I remember some large fig trees. One of them was at a neighbors place. I'm wondering if it was the variety that made the tree get large or perhaps the microclimate, provided by the surrounding structures. I'm not even sure if they protected the tree during the winter months or not. It produced enough figs for them to share some with everyone around.

[QUOTE=Herman2]I am in Willingboro NJ

Sas:Winter 2014 and 15,were brutally cold and killed most trees to ground or very close to,on East coast,it did not matter how old or how thick the plants were.

So what you see is new trunks started in Spring 2015.![/QUOTE]

It seems that it got too cold in Jan both years too quickly AND FOR TOO LONG that the trees, even wrapped, didn't have time to harden off. I wonder if my heat lamp remedy would avoid this, I flipped the lamps on this winter when we had the five straight days of frigid temps - even though they were well covered because I figured after day two of single digit temps it would begin to affect the trees. I also used them around my peach tree canopy for a couple of nights when we had the early April freeze and it's loaded with fruit.

these are my in ground all rotted back to the ground this past winter i packed them in barrels with wood chips they rotted nect year just a cover and they will breath i would rather them freeze than rot like that,~ white bronx

[QUOTE=chucklikestofish]italian letizia

 [/QUOTE]~sal's el,just put in ground 1 week ago doing good~  

Here is a pic of my first inground success, a Sal's (Gene).  This is a tree received late 2014 as a successfully rooted cutting.  Last May I planted it inground beside my above ground pool for protection.  It misses some sun due to shading from the adjacent arborvitae, probably not in full sun till 11 AM.  It grew rather slowly initially last year, and did not put on figs till late.  They were kind of bland but were ripening in 2nd half of Oct, rather late here.

I winterized it by surrounding it with a 5ft tall wire cage, pruning back to a basic frame not over 3ft tall, filling the bottom 18 inches with large pine bark mulch chunks, then putting plastic bags full of leaves around loosely the top branches, inside wire cage.  Whole thing then covered with large tarp.  I uncovered the fig plant in mid May, long after my stored potted figs were brought out.  At that point it was starting a few 1 inch long shoots.  There was die back of about 1 inch on the two branches closest to the edge of the wire cage, likely not enough insulation for those tips.

Now with minimal fertilization this is growing like mad - almost 5 ft tall at peak - and has a large number of figlets on it - many more than any of my potted figs that are a year older.  Some of the potted plants are a couple weeks farther along in the way of fig development.  Encouraged by this success I have planted 6 more in ground - MBvs x 2, Adriatic (JH), BryantDark, Hardy Chicago and Salem White - the Salem White and a MBvs are going to be trialed along a low cordon.  If this is successful in giving a large number of figs from each in the future, I will likely transition many more to inground, except for those that require a longer growing season, and perhaps a potted plant or two of early varieties like RdB, Lattarula, Florea to have a slightly earlier harvest.

I believe the large pine bark chunks provided good drainage for any moisture inside the base of the cage while protecting the trunk's bottom 1.5 ft very well.  I would not be surprised if a really severe winter could damage the branches just protected by bagged leaves and tarp.  We will see!

I have one from Switzerland, can't get a clone from it or I would leave it uncovered to see if it makes it, the bark is very hard, tried so hard, no luck Had a crack at the base  which I made when I bend it over two years ago and last winter I cut it down, and covered it. It's growing back, had a lot of old wood stock but zero luck, I have given some from spring cuttings to a buddy who did root it, even tried to air layer it with no luck It did get down to minus 20 for two days here where I live in CT. I think it may be the cold hardiest, because of the hard time of have of getting to root it. Got 3 new shoots coming hoping I get one with some root, then I'm sure I can make a clone Have other figs, which grow like weeds when I clone them not this girl Here's a  pics of the figs  
Gary

[QUOTE=figpig_66]j have i lot of IN GROUND fig trees but i am in Zone 9b [/QUOTE]

Me too . I am in Abbeville.
mayhawman 

Well, that's my aim to be able to have one here in the ground like that too, I even gave about 8 old wood cuttings to a guy who owns a huge garden center that ell fig tree he tried no luck here is the type I have


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StIOcvgZJCY

THAT IS MINUS 20 F FOR TWO DAYS i'm in the coldest part of my town Southbury CT. 06488

[QUOTE=mayhawman]

Me too . I am in Abbeville.
mayhawman  [/QUOTE]

Your Celeste looks beautiful Travis. How far from fully ripe are they in Abeville this time of the year? Mine are at least a month and a half away here in Loganville Ga.

I'll have to put pictures up of the larger, in-ground trees, but here's the in-ground nursery as of this morning.  -ER, zone 7
 

[QUOTE=FinleyFigs]I'll have to put pictures up of the larger, in-ground trees, but here's the in-ground nursery as of this morning.  -ER, zone 7
 [/QUOTE]~nice ,thanks for sharing ~

Wow, the fig nursery looks great FF. Thanks for sharing

Very nice trees everyone!!

Hi all,
here are pictures of some of my in ground fig trees:
Ali Pasha, Black Cartagena, Dottato, Michurinsk-10,
Precose de Dalmatie, Ronde de Bordeaux, White Adriatic.
  

Here's the latest of my Celeste. It's a beast at 6' tall by same amount wide. The Spanish mission next to it looks the same. This is the optimal fig tree shape ... Nice and full. It's trees like these that make the inground effort so worthwhile in cooler zones. Nothing like a robust inground fig tree in non-accommodating climate.

[QUOTE=mayhawman]

Me too . I am in Abbeville.
mayhawman  [/QUOTE]

Love, love, love this tree. A perfect 10!