Looks like those leaves are fry i think it is very hot by that wall try to put thermostat by your fig tree and check temperature. Many fig trees are salt tolerant i don`t think salt is a problem only temperature.

Anything newly planted is likely to do that in this heat. Maybe you could put a towel it (using the wall and protective wire) for an hour or so during the most direct sun, leaving plenty of room for air flow around the bottom. But either way it should eventually be OK as long as the roots don't get too dry while it gets established.

That tree is cooking. Having grown fig trees in Lake Havasu...I have seen this before. Give it full afternoon shade for at least a couple of weeks till it gets over the initial transplant shock. That block wall is heating up and reflecting heat back on your tree. Also DEEPLY mulch the ground for a couple of feet around your tree. You want to keep the roots cool.

Best of luck.

Thank you all for the great tips. Do you think I should remove the fruits to help it get over the transplant shock? I had success with removing fruit of my lemon tree when I planted it a month ago. This fig tree has lots of fruit and I wonder if keeping them will hurt the tree at this stage.

Yes, the above good folks are right on. I planted two trees in June and covered them from direct sunlight for just over a week. In Arizona, shade them for two weeks or more.

BTW: My trees are out in full sun two weeks later and haven't lost one leaf!

If it were my tree I'd probably remove half to 2/3 of the fruit. Leave the rest. The tree might drop them as well on it's own or it might keep them. Also...they might turn out bad this first year due to the stress the tree has gone through.

That's what I'd do. Others may disagree.

Best of luck,

Dave

Good advise above,I will mention,also that fig trees suffer anytime Temperature is over 95F.
Old tree can take even more but young tree just bake ,especially when newly planted.
Water the plant very early in the Morning before heat comes.

Thank you so much for the additional advise. I ended up taking all the fruits off the tree except one. To see if it gets dropped by the tree.

Since I had so much young fruit, I found a recipe to make green fig preserve. Turned out delicious!

A couple more leaves did curl up and started to turn slightly yellow after I removed the fruits and added additional shade, but it will be ok. I will keep you all posted how it does.

Thanks again!

Look at that? You didn't even waste the green figs. those are great pictures. How about a written recipe to go with them? Maybe?

noss

Thank you noss!

I kind of combined two recipes that I found online to make this. I don't really measure too much when it comes to cooking, so you might want to adjust it to make it to your liking.

Ingredients for making Green Fig Preserve

• unripe figs

• sugar (use half the weight with the amount of fig you have, if you prefer less sweet, use a little less than half, I used about 1 cup of sugar for mine)

• 5 1/2 cups of water (I guessed this would be the right amount for my figs)

• juice of 1/2 lemon

• 2 whole cloves

• couple broken pieces of stick cinnamon

• pinch of sea salt

First wash, clean, scape and prepare the green figs by trimming the knobby stalks off the figs and cut off any imperfections on the skins. I used the blade of a pairing knife to scrape the surface to remove any dried saps and imperfections like brown spots (they would feel hard to the touch).

Then cut a cross in the bottom end of each fig.

Put the water and the sugar in a heavy based pan and bring to a boil, stirring all the time. Stir in the lemon juice and figs.

I boiled rapidly for about 45 minutes, until the fruit is clear and translucent, and the syrup has thickened. During this time your kitchen will begin to smell really delicious! If you have more figs, then you might have to go longer.

During the process to reduce the syrup, I transferred everything into a smaller heavy based pan to keep the liquid around the same level as the fig, as you can see from my photos.

Leave the figs to cool in the syrup, then pack the figs in clean sterilized jars, fill with the syrup and seal. You can give it a try now or leave them to stand for a day or two before eating them.

Hopefully this helps, I am not very good with giving recipe since I don't always measure during cooking process, so whenever I came up with something good, I am writing things down by memory~

There are recipes out there call for calcium hydroxide (slaked lime) and a much more complex process. I did not have slaked lime in my kitchen and it sounded kind of scary to me, so I went with the all natural route. :-)

Let me know if it turns out good for you when you try it!

Hi Everyone,

It has been a few days after I took the fruits off now... and the tree is looking worse. I made sure to give it enough shade all around, and keep the soil moist. Do you think it might be overwatered? I have one little leave that is hanging on looking much healthier than the rest of them. We got some good cool weather and a few showers, so I was hoping that will help the fig recover.

I would move the fig tree to another area of the garden away from those south facing walls that are heating it up too much. It is an oven there. I would replant it in north facing area or shadey area for now. Try not to disturb the roots when you transplant it and water if well. It may lose all its leaves and go dormant for awhile...but it may still live. Keep watering it and if the roots survive you will see new leaves sprout within a couple of months.

Thanks for the recipe, for taking the time to think about it and write it out for us. It's in favorites now. :)

I'm with the last few posters. Move that little tree to a cooler spot like they said to do, disturbing the roots as little as possible. Have the new hole already dug/prepared before you dig up the tree.

Good luck with it and keep us posted. I'm pulling for the little one.

Keep the tree shaded from any sun until it takes hold and you see new growth. Fig trees are tough and I hope yours comes back to good health. Be sure to keep the root zone shaded and mulched well.

Is that a newspaper mulch you have showing in the pics? If so, if it's a solid sheet, don't put it back on top of the roots. They need to breathe and newspaper will smother them. I made that mistake with my inground Celeste. After I removed the newspaper, it did better. I also had weed cloth around it and that wasn't good, either, even though the water could go through it. The tree didn't like it and put roots up through the weed cloth. It's much happier with cypress mulch around it. Also, if you use newspaper on other plants with deeper root systems, use only black and white newsprint. The colored portions can contain lead, unless that's changed and someone knows differently. (If so, someone please say something about it.)

noss

Hi noss and terry,

Thank you so much for the feedback. I was really hoping to grow the fig there so I can train the branches to run along the wall. But if you guys think that it will be better off at a more shaded spot, I will have to hunt and prep for it over the weekend. The problem is that I really don't have another good spot for it around the yard...

The leaves pretty much all dropped off except two yellowed ones and the one green leaf on the top of the plant. I will go ahead and remove the newspaper now. Thought I was doing something good for the plant, but you are right, I am probably suffocating it.

Thank you all again for taking the time to make suggestions and provide tips! I will keep everyone posted with the progress.

jac,

I was told what I told you about using newspaper because fig roots are shallow and need to breathe, so I passed it along to you.

I hate to think of you baking your fig tree, but understand why you would want to espalier it along the wall. Could you stick some non-rotting wood like a trellis against the wall to block the sun from radiating so much heat back at the tree somehow? Is there any kind of insulation that could go against the wall under the wood that wouldn't look awful? If the tree is espaliered to the wall, the insulation wouldn't show much. Just thinking of things and tossing them out. Maybe they're stupid, but maybe not. Shade cloth could be used to shade the tree from the hottest part of the afternoon sun.

That's a pretty block wall, but there is a lot of concrete in that area. Could you get some mulch and cover the area even a bit over the concrete near the tree? Deep mulch?

noss

noss,

Thanks for sharing the tips. I have decided to keep the tree there. Even though it shed most of its leaves, there are a couple of them are staying and perking up. I spray the wall and concrete floor with water twice a day to help keep the area cool. And I added additional shade cloth over the top for the hot afternoon sun.

The corner it is in is considered a north-west facing wall, so based terry's advise, that is the right spot for it. I have been watching it closely and think that after the leaves grow back, it will be happy there. I also plan to grow some grown cover plants around the base in front of it to provide more shade around the base of the fig tree.

I will keep you all posted in a couple of months to see if the tree survives. So far, it looks like it will recover with no problem.

I wish you the best with the tree, then. I hope the shade will help it. Ground cover could interfere with the roots of the fig tree because fig trees have shallow roots. Mulch would shade the soil, look nice and not compete with moisture and food for the fig tree.

Do keep us posted, please. I'm rooting for your success,

noss

After watering everyday, keeping the shade over my poor Black Jack fig tree, it is showing signs of new life!

My Angel Red pomegranate that was planted the same day did the exact same thing.

They basically shed 90% of their leaves to help deal with transplant shock. After some TLC for two weeks, they both put out healthy new growth!

Here're some photos of the fig tree with new growth.

But there are lots of these tiny flies around the tree. Could they be fig whitefly?

Here's some photos of my Angel Red that did the exact same thing.

Again, I am so glad that I got lots of advise on here for care of my fig tree. But I also have learned from this experience that the plants are pretty smart and does what it needs to cope with the transplant shock if you give them some additional support like water and some shade. I have learned to not freak out as soon as I see the tree drop their leaves when I first plant them, and learn that with proper care they will put out new growth when it is ready.

Strange, it did not post the last photo of my Angel Red with new growth.
Here it is.

Hello Jac,

I'm so happy for you that the trees took hold and are busy growing for you. Lookin' good!

noss

It normal all trees do the same roots are not established yet. I have the same for Apricot and peaches. Just keep watering it. It might be helpfull to clip some leaves.

Congrats on the new growth! I live in the desert, and it is very hot here too. I almost killed a Panachee Fig because it was in a pot in full sun, and I was cooking the roots! Finally, after moving it into the shade, it has 6 new leaves with 3 new growth tips, and I see progress!

Your pomegranate looks very nice too! We noticed one of ours completely died because the dripper fell out and it got no water for days. We flooded it, and it came right back! It now has a lot of baby pomegranates! More than the ones that didn't get almost killed!

Thanks for all the photos and Congrats again!
Suzi

Glad your fig doing well again. I also have Panache in hot desert against block wall with full sun and no sun protection but planted mine when it was around April so it was in the 70's. Now, it's consistently well over 100 degrees daily. It put on over 2 ft of growth this year. I started the cutting around oct 2011. It has very healthy leaves and some figs too. I think the difference is that I put compost around it and mulched it heavily. I didn't push the fig chemically with fertilizers so I think it is stronger that way. The figs are beautifully striped but the overall color is much lighter than the figs I have frowning in pots with a little shade in the afternoon.

Glad your fig doing well again. I also have Panache in hot desert against block wall with full sun and no sun protection but planted mine when it was around April so it was in the 70's. Now, it's consistently well over 100 degrees daily. It put on over 2 ft of growth this year. I started the cutting around oct 2011. It has very healthy leaves and some figs too. I think the difference is that I put compost around it and mulched it heavily. I didn't push the fig chemically with fertilizers so I think it is stronger that way. The figs are beautifully striped but the overall color is much lighter than the figs I have frowning in pots with a little shade in the afternoon.

Glad your fig doing well again. I also have Panache in hot desert against block wall with full sun and no sun protection but planted mine when it was around April so it was in the 70's. Now, it's consistently well over 100 degrees daily. It put on over 2 ft of growth this year. I started the cutting around oct 2011. It has very healthy leaves and some figs too. I think the difference is that I put compost around it and mulched it heavily. I didn't push the fig chemically with fertilizers so I think it is stronger that way. The figs are beautifully striped but the overall color is much lighter than the figs I have growing in pots with a little shade in the afternoon.

There's an echo in here-echo in here, in here..... LOL!

It seems like you can get duplicate posts due to GW being slow to work. It happened to me and there were two of the same posts for me.

It's good to know your trees are doing well and putting out new growth.

noss

It is burning up...in case no one mentioned...needs water, deep soil...more water...

laura aka "gplainshoya"