Dear Readers,

I'm curious to know if anyone else has experienced the death of their
fig tree this past winter in the US northeast. I live in New York
City. Although mine and every other tree I know of in my neighborhood
is regularly winterized, my tree died. My neighbor's died. Both
trees of a friend who lives 2 blocks away died. I've also heard of
unusual tree deaths from 2 other friends in Long Island.

Any similar stories out there?

-Anthony M. Falcone

My son lives in cobblehill brooklyn on warren street. 3 or 4 houses
toward smith street (between two 3 story buildings) there are (were) two
massive 20 foot fig trees which have, to my knowledge, never been
winterized. This past winter (the coldest in the past 50 years) both trees
died. Neither shows any signs of leafing out.
I live in Englewood NJ where the winter temps. Average 3 degrees
colder than brooklyn. Last winter I wrapped my 8 foot tall brown turkey
fig tree in burlap. Then I wrapped a strand of out door christmas tree
lights around the burlap (large clear glass incandescent bulbs). I made a
10 foot cylinder of plastic snow fence around the tree and filled the
cylinder with leaves and salt hay. Then I wrapped the entire cylinder with
tar paper (sides and top). When temperatures were predicted to fall below
15 degrees, I turned on the lights…..being careful to turn them off when
the temperature went above 15 degrees! I probably used the lights no more
than 10 times during the winter. Only once did I have to use the lights
for longer than 48 hours.
My tree consists of five main 8 foot tall stems. Two of the five
survived up to and including the terminal buds. These leafed out in early
May. The remaining stems were killed down by three to four feet (killing
the terminal buds). The lower four feet of these stems have now leafed out
(late may to early june).
I don’t know whether these were killed by cold or by getting too
hot from the lights. Next winter I’m thinking about using fiberglass
insulation instead of salt hay. I’m also going to spray the branches with
an anti-desiccant before I wrap the branches with burlap. I’m wondering
whether I could rig up some kind of thermostat so that the temperature
inside the enclosure could be controlled automatically.

d. mills