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hrhcsh

Does Fig Tree Need Pruning ? If so, HOW ?

hrhcsh
13 years ago

Comments (8)

  • igo4fish
    13 years ago

    lol. YES! looks like my Celeste and Alma up until a few days ago. They got like that in just one season. You should prune it to 4-5 main trunks that are at least 4" apart. Then cut the tops back to about 3-4' tall (if you want a main crop you can reach from the ground). In-ground fig trees in zones which are susceptible to winterkill above ground should be trained to the 'open center' style. Good luck!

  • ejp3
    13 years ago

    I would cut it back at least 50% down from the top. I would love to see a picture of that tree leafed out, it must be majestic! Where is the tree located and what cultivar is it?

  • hrhcsh
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    It is in NE Alabama, Brown Turkey

  • genecolin
    13 years ago

    At first glance it looks like a tree that dies back to the ground each year. But with the info of it being in Alabama and being a Brown Turkey (if it really is), that shouldn't be the case. Looking closely at the picture seems to show three groups of sprouts. Perhaps this was a larger tree with three main trunks the got cut down to ground level and it re-sprouted. Although it doesn't appeal to the eye in its current condition, when fully leafed it probably a nice looking specimen. With all that said it could be pruned back to fewer sprouts and top them off to form a tree.

    The trunk in its current situation could by susceptible to rot or insect damage to the point it might die out.

    OR....Cuttings could be taken or better yet with such nice straight sprouts, air layers could be done thus starting new trees which could be grown with single trunks in the area behind this one. You could have fruit bearing trees in as few as 2 or 3 years.

    As you can see it's hard to kill a fig tree and you have many options. Good luck.
    "gene"

  • luke411
    13 years ago

    Hey guy's, Im new to the forum. I have a fig tree that is about 30 yrs old and I had a guy come out and prune it. To me it look kind of funny. I have look everywhere on the net for a video or some pics but I cant find anything that shows how it is suppose to look. The guy that pruned it left peices of the branches, he said this would promot more growth. Im going to post some pics, maybe someone can tell me if he did it right. I have the before and after pics. It needed some major work because it was covered in vines. Can someone please tell me how to post pics. Thanks for the help...

  • noss
    13 years ago

    Hi Luke,

    Welcome!

    It will be great to see your pictures of this tree, as I recently butchered my two older Celeste trees, which was probably not a good idea, but the large-diameter trunks and limbs are popping out little buds, so I definitely didn't kill the trees. :)

    noss

  • brandon7 TN_zone7
    13 years ago

    Luke411,

    Start your own new thread to post the pictures in. That way advice specific to your situation won't get mixed up with advice for hrhcsh, and, you will get the feedback notices from Gardenweb instead of them going to hrhcsh. Here's info about posting pictures....

    One of the easiest ways to provide your photo to be embedded into a post is to upload it onto an image hosting site such as Photobucket, Flickr, etc. That should be pretty straight forward, and the individual sites will give instructions on how to get your photos uploaded to their site when you sign up.

    Once your picture has been uploaded, find its image location address (URL) by right clicking on the image and copying the image location. Some sites may even provide the appropriate HTML code in a text box below the photo for your convenience. It will be the one that begins with a href=...

    Let's say, as an example, that the address of the picture you want to post is http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg

    To embed the picture into a post, use the command:
    img src="http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg">;
    _____________________________________

    If your picture is too large to fit nicely into the text page, you can add a width attribute.

    The command with the width attribute would look something like:
    img src="http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg"; width=600>
    _____________________________________

    Another option is to use a text link which might be beneficial to people on slow connections.

    To do this, use the command:
    a href="http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg">your text goes here/a>
    _____________________________________

    Note that I had to use special characters to get the commands above to show up here without turning into pictures, but you can use them as shown (with the correct image web address, of course).

  • brandon7 TN_zone7
    13 years ago

    BTW, hrhcsh, I'd need a higher resolution picture for a positive ID on those beagles. LOL

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