This year has been tough on our fig, and I suspect that it is not
going to sprout well - it looks as if a few weedy tip shoots may
break into leaf, but not much else. My inclination is that, if
it does that, to cut those back, and force it to regrow from old
wood.

Has anyone experience with figs and late frosts, and does that
make sense?


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

wrote in message ...

This year has been tough on our fig, and I suspect that it is not
going to sprout well - it looks as if a few weedy tip shoots may
break into leaf, but not much else. My inclination is that, if
it does that, to cut those back, and force it to regrow from old
wood.

Has anyone experience with figs and late frosts, and does that
make sense?


One thing - on our Brown Turkey the figs are on the tips, so if you cut
these back you may lose all this year's fruit.

Ours has just started puttting out leaves, and although we haven't had a
late frost it has in the past been frost hardy.
Yours may just be a late starter this year because of the continuing cold
weather.

Possibly worth waiting a few weeks to see what developes?

--
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
[Not even bunny]

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

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In article ,
David WE Roberts wrote:


This year has been tough on our fig, and I suspect that it is not
going to sprout well - it looks as if a few weedy tip shoots may
break into leaf, but not much else. My inclination is that, if
it does that, to cut those back, and force it to regrow from old
wood.

Has anyone experience with figs and late frosts, and does that
make sense?

One thing - on our Brown Turkey the figs are on the tips, so if you cut
these back you may lose all this year's fruit.

Thanks, but ... :-(

We are FAR too cold for overwintering fruit! I agree that figs
develop mainly on the previous year's wood, and rarely on new
shoots, but there aren't going to be many of those.

Ours has just started puttting out leaves, and although we haven't had a
late frost it has in the past been frost hardy.

Cambridge is normally colder than that, and was this year. Even
figs in warmer gardens haven't started leaves yet.

Yours may just be a late starter this year because of the continuing cold
weather.

Er, no, sorry. It is pretty clear that the fairly hard and late
frosts have killed most of the younger growth. I did mean a FEW
weedy tip shoots!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

So are we - but this year's figs are already visible as lentil sized buds before the leaves appear. These are the ones you will lose by pruning.

One of our figs is just thinking about uncurling its leaves, the other hasn't started yet.

At this time of year I'd be worried about sap bleeding, so if you are going to prune, test a small twig first. But you're obviously OK about taking out dead stuff.

That said, commercial growers prune heavily, taking out big branches, in order to encourage a lot of branches since, as has already been said, figs tend to fruit at only at the tips.

So if you think you are still OK to prune, then seizing the opportunity to cut back a few branches may give you more figs next year.

(There again, if there are a lot of embryo fruits coming, I'd find it very hard to prune - delayed gratification isn't my thing as far as figs are concerned.)

Figs are very tough things. April two years ago last my garden waterer forgot about the potted fig, which lost all its leaves and died back. I chopped it back to 6 inch apparently dead twigs and parked the pot under a shrub to deal with later. In late August it produced a whole bunch of new leaves and is now going fine.

wrote:
This year has been tough on our fig, and I suspect that it is not
going to sprout well - it looks as if a few weedy tip shoots may
break into leaf, but not much else. My inclination is that, if
it does that, to cut those back, and force it to regrow from old
wood.

Has anyone experience with figs and late frosts, and does that
make sense?

I know this won't make you any happier, but my fig looks like it's
about to have its best year yet (ok, not much comparison to go by!)
and we may even get some edible fruit this year