Hi Steve :I was testing along the same line you did.the only difference is that for metod #3 i covered first with house siding material and soil in top of it .The result were just like yours:metod 3 (benting down and covering) works best.
Now the secret next year is to allwayes have a lot of young stems that are easy to bent down,because the old stem is going to be too thick to bent next fall.Regards

I cover all my figs with burlap and had a pretty good result. I lost 6 inches on top of a brown turkey, 9 inches on a italian honey fig. My petite fig in which was only 12 inchs tall was covered in burlap and lost nothing. I also covered in pine branches. Even my musa basjoo is still green 2 foot tall. (was 6 feet in fall) the winter though wasnt that bad exept for one drop down to 5 degrees.

I used no protective wrap this year and it looks like my figs (Brown Turkey and Celeste) have about 50% of their branches green and alive. These are in a very exposed situation -- no wind protection. I buried several low-lying branches last fall. All those survived, except one was girdled by voles, so it's dead. I have three potted figs which I buried to the rims in dirt under the deck in shade and sheltered from the wind -- these are all completely green and are beginning to leaf out.

Therefore, I think the best location to plant figs in my area is sheltered from wind, and where they can benefit from shade/part shade in the winter (but still get full sun in summer when sun is higher. Combination of full sun and drying winds seems to cause more dieback -- especially in a very warm microclimate where they break dormancy, then freeze.

I had a couple branches on the ground and covered with leaves and some of them got some sort of rot toward the base and died. My figs were covered with aluminum bubble wrap insulation and about 95% of the wood has made it in good shape, including most of the shoot tips. I didn't do a very good job constructing the tent and I think the holes in it around some of the shoots caused them to die. Halfway through the winter I found out that an ordinary stapler worked well for putting the insulation sheets together and my level of protection improved considerably. Next winter I am going to make the tent taller and I am also going to make a tent for my Marionberries. I lost most of the Marionberry shoots this winter.

Scott

I did not do anything to protect my in-ground figs this winter, as it was relatively mild. We hit 12 degrees back in November, and 11 degrees in February after a really warm January.

These are Marseilles, Hardy Chicago and Brown Turkey. BT has one branch with 6 inches dead, all others ok. Many brebas starting to show up on all three the past few days. Frost the past two mornings has not caused any harm, as far as I can tell.

I also have two edible caprifigs, Enderud and Saleeb. These are small and still dormant. There is some die back on the tops, but they are still alive (or at least still green).

~kiwinut

i wrapped my fig tree at the end of october early november with burlap, a blanket, wrapped wall insulation from home depot around it and then covered it with plastic to kee the water out. when uncovered on Easter i already had small leaves, and buds, growing through the burlap. this worked pretty good. Now it is pretty full with leaves and many figs on it.

FWIW- Im located in NNJ and I did the following:
- cut the limbs down to approx 2-3'.
- tied all the limbs in one bunch to make the next step easier (about 5-6 limbs).
- wrapped them in tar paper (as suggested by someone on this forum I believe).
- bent them down to the ground and placed soil over them and a piece of corrugated type metal roofing over it to keep the soil from being washed away if we had a rain storm.

This method saved my fig tree (unsure to this day what type it is...Im think BT) for the very first time in 10 yrs of trying. I dont know if it was the mild winter, the method used or both but Im very pleased to see it ALIVE and well. As of this date, Im beginning to see a lil bit of fruit and the tree/bush has easily grown 3x its dormant height.