Hello Les,

You must be related to me! I just tried to kill all my potted fig trees by giving them the wrong fertilizer. Thankfully, they have rallied and some are starting to put out new leaves.

Are your fig trees in the ground, or in a pot? Did you plant the trees in full sun, right away? Had the trees been used to the full sun, do you know?

I'm sure there will be answers to your problem from people here. Hang in there--And no stealin'. :)

noss

Can your figs swim? All joking aside you may have over watered them. My newly transplanted trees for this year are planted in a fairly dry location and are getting along very well with a couple of gallons of water every other day (about 2 minutes worth). Figs are not very tolerant to soil that is constantly wet.

By way of comparison let me offer the following example.I am located in South Alabama where up until the last 2 weeks the weather has been very dry. This year I cleaned off enough land to plant 42 fig trees about 2 feet tall and 24 blueberry bushes about 8 inches tall. I water them every other day with hose in hand walking down 4 rows....it takes me about 30 minutes.

Your small tree dropped leaves for a reason. I'm thinking either heat, or, water problems.

Is your tree in-ground, or in a pot? If in a pot, you may be cooking the roots and the tree is in shock. If in the ground, make sure the soil drains well. Figs in pots need the containers to be cool. Move it into part shade, and give that tree some time to recover from extreme heat.

Hope this works.

Frank

If this fails I may have to resort to stealing them from my neighbor's tree. Can you ask your neighbor for some cuttings? Hopefully they'll want to do a little maintenance after the fruits are done.

I don't have much experience with figs, just started propagating them this year. But I do with propagation in general and agree with the overwatering sentiments above. After 6 weeks, any new tree or shrub (including fig cuttings from earlier this year) should be able to go a week or more without wilting, which I would be waiting for to signal a need to water after that amount of time. Not serious collapse, but morning droop (afternoon droop can be deceiving in high temps.) It needs to get itself going with as little help from you as possible to be a healthy self-sustaining entity.

d all of the above. It is in the ground and we have mostly clay soil. I did mix peat moss in. I have probably been over watering them because we have been in a drought and my banana plant was over watered. I'll give them a break once the rain stop. They are in full sun until about 3 or 4 when it is the hottest.

I was told to keep them wet their first year and fed....what do I need to feed them?
Les

ps thanks all.

Just for future reference, amending a hole, especially with peat, is not necessary and no longer recommended for planting trees and shrubs. Digging deeper than necessary is good to loosen the soil but adding other materials creates discrepancies with water flow between the amended and the surrounding soil.

By comparison, I have 14 trees in ground that I planted all within the past 4 months. My soil is also clay, mixed with a little compost, (No Peat), is heavily mulched with straw, and temps have been between 95 and 105 here for the past five weeks. I added a little lime due to a low soll ph, and fertilized once a month with fish emuulision at half recomended dosage.

But I only water maybe every 1 to 5 days. I check under the mulch for dampness/wetness first.

The other thing is...when temps go over 100 for more than one day...I cover them with 50% shade cloth. They haven't developed enough roots to uptake enough water and nutrients, and the leaves on the one's I planted three weeks ago are, in my opinion, to fragil to take day after day of full sun over 100 degrees.

Today we are being treated to a thunder storm. Just a trace of rain so far...but skies are cloudy, temps just dropped below 80, and the humidity is way up. The figs are loving it.

Anyway, that's how I do it. You may want to try some of the above.

Best of luck with your tree.

Dave

Above post should read that I only water every 4 to 5 days. Sorry for the error. Hope your tree makes it Les.

Also, don't feel so bad. I have lost and replaced two of my inground trees (grown from this year's cuttings) allready.

You win some...you lose some.

Dave