You like working without a net?

A sub-tropical fig tree, in-ground, in Zone-5 is just asking for disaster. The work it takes to wrap fig-trees takes a hell of a lot more time than bringing a tree in and out of a garage. Do yourself a favor and place your tree on a dolly, and ROLL it in and out. All it takes is just one lousy winter, and your tree's gone, or branches are dead, damaged, rotted, moldy, diseased....end result...no figs.

This forum has plenty of information involving the conditions that you describe. Pay attention to all of the postings that show photos of winter damage and dead, wrapped, trees. I live in Zone-7, NYC, and I wouldn't take the chance of losing my trees to freezing. weather. I grow my trees in large containers and roll them in and out of an unheated storage shed each season...and, I,... keep my fingers crossed!

Good luck with your figs.

Frank

My potted fig tree does not fruit reliablely every year. It bare baby fruits over the winter in the garage in general but sometime the fruit did not develop into full size fig the next spring; sometime, it was rubbered off accidentally, sometime , there is just no fruits, period. Every year there something happes with all the winterized plants all jammed in garage. It is much better to grow the tree in the ground if there is a way so it can fruit reliablely every year.

People here are growing fig trees in ground. My mailman confirmed his dad does; fespo-Frank confirmed one of his buddy grows fig tree in ground in zone 5b. They are not crazy, they are not asking for disaster, they are creative. They find a way to outsamrt the nature.

I further inquired my mailman about his dad's method of growing the fig tree in ground in Chicago. I was told that his dad pins the branches down to the ground, fig tree braches are pliable, then put a thick layer of mulch over it. When weather gets warm, he just remove the mulch, unpin branches. All the braches springs right back to the air and starts new growing season again. His dad's fig tree has been there for 10-15 years, as far as he recall.
I am going to make a appointment with this genise to further learn his technics so I can get my fig tree out of garage. I bet my fig tree likes to be grown in the ground much better than in a pot in the garage.

Growing a tree in the ground does have many, many advantages over a container-grown plant, and after reading about by all the in-ground fig trees growing in your area, I'd say: ..."good luck, .... go for it".

I like to have as much control over my fig trees as possible, especially, some control over the winter temperatures and storage conditions. That's why my trees are in containers. I've been doing this since 2007, and I get dozens of figs every year that are ripe and sweet. If you plant your trees in the ground, you will be able to control almost nothing except maybe some watering in dry spells. Your trees will live only if you can protect them from the killing, bitter cold. Protecting fig trees from freezing winters is always a gamble and your friends have just been lucky. Nature will always trump your best efforts to control her.

You asked if it was possible to grow a fig, in-ground in Zone-5? The answer is: yes...anything is possible. How long your trees will live will be entirely up to you. Genetically, your trees are sub-tropical, even your "Hardy Chicago". Expose them to the wrong growing conditions and they will die, or be badly damaged by your winters. All it takes is just one bad winter.

Frank

Yes its possible to grow a fig tree in the ground. I live in canada zone 5A we have long very cold snowy winters hear and i have 4 in the ground and have been in the ground for about 10 years. 2 of them i cover them really well and the other two i bury them in the ground it does take alot of work to get them ready for the winter but i think it's well worth it. The only problem i had was mice and rats eating away at my tree's but i have taken care of that problem i got a cat now.

massimo, I am glad that you grow fig in ground successfully in 5A!. Sounded like you have outsmarted nature even more further. I have few questions for you if you don't mind:
1)Are your trees Hardy Chicago fig or different variety?
2)When you said two of them , you cover them really well, what exactly do you mean?... You mulch it? how deep is the mulch you need ? Or you just covered with some kind of plastic tarp?
3)What type of mulch works the best?
4)Do you pin all the branches to the ground as well or just prune most of the braches off to make them short so they are easy to be covered??
5)When you bury the other two, do you use soil to bury them or something else?
6)Two differnt methods you are using, which one works better with your experiences?
7) out of 10 years, how many years the figs ripe before the season ends? usually, how productive are the fig trees?

For example, burying the tree in the ground each winter like Martin suggests certainly has to be a ton of work, but will almost certainly result in the tree surviving.

One way to make the burying easier is to grow the main trunk horizontally close to the ground. Then you can even mound up the dirt over it if you wish. They do it this way in Japan and cover with rice hulls, I believe (see link). I've never tried this myself, but would like to one day.

Rob23b, Thanks for the link. Thoese are certainly very interesting pictures and different method of growing figs.
Do you know if they are covered up in cold season or just grow closer to the ground? There is face down U shape steel structure all around,I bet when it is cold, they are covered with some sort of plactic sheet. So basically, These trees are growing in removable greenhouse in cold season which isvery common practicein Asia. They are not buried. But I could be wrong.
"grow the main trunk horizontally close to the ground." is not Japanese invention. There is thread in Orchard forum talking about people in northern states grow fruit trees that way in 1800. Very interesting artical.

I thanks all for your contriution to this thread.

Presumably this would lower the heating costs of the greenhouses, assuming they are actively heated at all. Perhaps with the plastic coverings and the rice hull insulation, it is not necessary to provide any additional heat.

Wish I read Japanese. I can only guess the details.

Rob

Have you heard that rice hulls will generate heat too in a pile? I am not sure how true this claim is and is very interested to have someone to confirm that.

Rice hulls will blow all over the place if they get dry and they rot. I would think if they rot, that would generate heat.

noss

So you would have to keep it dry. I believe they somehow mold the rice hulls into large solid blocks. These have a high insulation value. If you were to stack these around and above the trees and keep dry, covering with plastic or such, that would probably add several degrees of cold protection.

That's really neat, using blocks of rice hulls like that. I wish we had that here.

noss

I will check out the Ortho book on details of wintering the tree. I may need additional details/help from you who has successfully done the practicing in the fall.

Since you've put your fig tree into the ground this
spring, now I suppose you've covered the tree well
or have it buried into the ground.
Just curious, how tall and what variety is your fig tree?

I have the same story, my fig tree was indoored
for several years before I had it planted into the ground
this summer. It is hard to move a heavy pot in and out of the home every year and I was getting tired of the move. My fig tree is about 3 1/2 feet tall.

In this mid-October I started to cover my tree since there
were 2 nights that were -1C (30.2F).
The tree is in a corner, at its left side (2 feet away)
is my shed and behind it is a retaining wall about 3 feet high.
I put a mesh wire (a little more than 1 1/2 feet high) circling the little fig tree at the base. As the mesh wire
was sturdy, it was like a battle to have it wrapped around
the tree (it seemed to have a mind of its own). I put in
some fallen leaves inside the mesh wire. Put 4 bricks
around the mesh wire to add height and put my garbage
can upside-down to cover the tree. Then I wrapped the
mesh wire with an old carpet at the base.

But the weather was always fluctuating ......, sunny and warm during some days (10C/50F), then the next day was
around 2C/35.6F.

So poor little tree was having a bad time....
About 14 days ago, I opened the garbage can to check my little fig tree. There was condensation occured on the small branches and had mold. A few tips bud died as a result.
So I removed the garbage can as the tree cannot breathe through it. I put a small cardbox to contain the top branches and added a much bigger cardbox (used to transport a 27" TV) for a final cover. I put six huge paperbags stuffed with fallen leaves around the fig tree to block the wind.
My neighbors must be wondering why I was taking
their bags of fallen leaves!

Now the temperature is stable around 4C/39.2F(daytime T)
and -5C/23F(nighttime T).
I still have to go back to stuff in more fallen leaves
for this little tree.
My family thinks I am going nut covering this fig tree
with such efforts.

How is your tree doing?
Someone of this garden forum once said it is the
cold wind that makes the dormant fig tree branches
brittle.
I went back to cover my little fig tree with more
fallen leaves yesterday.
Today weather is warm again at round 13C/55F,
tonight will go back to about -2C/28.4F.
The fig tree would appreciate those leaves.

result:
When you plant a fig tree in a cold site, consider that you are lucky if it dies to the ground each year, in early years, but in the spring grows again, this happens better if you have protected the soil with plenty of mulch of leaves, THE first years. (leaves: those you have at home, no need to go to Japan). AND YEAR AFTER YEAR BECOME OLDER.

Though the fig tree has the ability to bring down the deep roots, these are less susceptible to the cold.

If you like to have brebas, you should know that these sprout from the buds of the past year, on apex of the old branches, that may be damaged by frosts.

If you want the second fruiting (true figs) these arise from buds produced again in the spring (so not subject to frosts), but they need a long hot season to mature.

In syntesis: sun irradiation for many hours, and hot in summer, dry deep and well drained soil, are more important that the cold in winter, if the plant survives.

The cultivation in pot or in ground are competely different; in ground an adult tre may be become large, and produce a lot of fruits. And do not need any care.

Take attention to the condition BUT IS an attempt to do.