First Sign of Spring from a Fig

[newnandawg]

This is the first sign of life from one of my 36 in ground fig trees. Nine others look like some
top growth will survive but the other 26 look dead to the ground. We shall see if they
come back from the roots later. This is Black Bethlehem that had no protection other than
2-4 inches of pine straw and the house shielding it from the North/Northwest winds. Not
as cold as you guys up north get but single digits anywhere is bad.

[AscPete]

Thanks for sharing that info...

Here's a photo of one of the in ground low espaliers, still partially covered in snow. The exposed verticals are a test and the largest is 3/8" caliper at the base, its still alive at ~ 6" above the mound . It survived the winter covered in snow and is just now being killed back to the "soil line" due to exposure to the wind and air temperatures. The cordon should still be well protected since its ~ 12" below the top or the mound (soil line). BTW, its an Unknown NolaDark.

[Rui]

Mike, good to see some buds forming.
Hopefully there'll still be enough fruit from the others this year, I look forward to your ratings and reviews this year.
Pete, I'm curious about your planned "unearthing".
Will you be transitioning to row cover, or waiting until the last frost date?

[AscPete]

It will depend on the temperatures later in the season..., but I have several movable low hoop houses (row covers), http://www.ourfigs.com/forum/figs-ho...ick-hoop-house that can be deployed in minutes.

[Darkman]

You guys make me feel lucky. Snow Single digits YIKES! My test this year was to do nothing and we had several wild swings that went from 50's to 19 in the course of 24 hours. The result, only a slight amount of tip dieback on a few plants but most (surprisingly a CDD Noir) had no damage at all.

[Rafaelissimmo]

Looks good Mike. Can't wait to get things rolling, I already have bud break in my greenhouse, about 14 trees fertilized and/or up-potted so far.

[Rewton]

Mike, it's nice in a sense that all of your figs were unprotected (except for the heavy mulch around the base). This will enable you to make draw conclusions about cold hardiness (taking into account of microenvironments near to house, water drainage, etc) that I wasn't able to make because different figs had different levels of protection.