Actually, the fig should be a perfect candidate for a climate-resilient plant for our northern gardens: it knows how to deal with heat and deficiency situations, it can manage with very little water, and it reacts immediately to narrow root space and lack of mineralisation with compact growth. If it dies above ground (because it got too cold in the winter, for example), it usually regenerates from the rootstock without any problems. But as always, when a plant has travelled a very long way in its evolutionary and cultural history, there are also problems. Despite climate change, the fig has had far too little time to adapt to the changed living conditions here in the north. This has to be compensated for in cultivation with horticultural knowledge, also with a few tricks and finally with a good portion of patience. The immigrating figs just need a little help before they can delight us with their sweet fruits...
If I look over the customer feedback of the last few years and summarise it, there are four problem areas: horticultural knowledge, pruning and fertilisation, fruit set and fruit development and last but not least winter hardiness.
Horticultural knowledge: these fig varieties exist
I know I mustn't go on too long here; otherwise no one will plant figs out of sheer fear. But it is important to know what kind of fig you have in your garden and how to grow it. Accordingly, we have divided our fig assortment into three main groups:
Summer figs
Summer figs produce tiny flowering figs at the top of the annual shoots in autumn and winter, which then develop further in the spring and ripen in the summer. These flowering figs are relatively delicate, but at temperatures below -10°C to -12°C they often freeze to death. So it is very important that summer figs are planted on house walls and along walls or cultivated in pots for a long time to ensure a reliable yield. And the gardener who is seized by pruning fever in the spring and cuts back all the tops will never harvest summer figs. Conversely, summer figs offer a rich reward for all the gardener's efforts, they ripen when figs are most enjoyed: in the summer, when the south and holidays are at home in your own garden.
Autumn figs
Autumn figs bear fruit directly on this year's developing wood, i.e. the fig tree sets fruit on many nodules during the current growth. It is important to let the plant grow calmly and without stress during the growing season so as not to disturb this process. And it also needs calm blood and a bit of nerve on the part of the gardener: in autumn, one should not be bothered by the fact that a good part of the fruit does not ripen in our climate, depending on the course of the year; good early-ripening autumn figs still produce enough ripe fruit. So don't look at the last green figs that only appeared in August and can never ripen again, but concentrate on the figs that were planted first and that will also ripen. It's just like in life: it is clearly more satisfying to concentrate on what you can have – and not on what is out of reach. Even the half-full glass quenches thirst...Capping the shoot tips in late summer (around the end of August/beginning of September) can help the fig tree to divert more energy from shoot growth to ripening. However, pruning too early can also have the opposite effect.
Twotimer® figs
Twotimer® figs offer the desired ultimate, two yields on one tree. But what almost looks like the fulfilment of all fig dreams is also a great challenge. Basically, we make the experience that it is sometimes easier to rely fully on summer figs in a climate with a mild winter or fully on an autumn fig in a climate with a long and warm vegetation period than to want everything immediately 😉. Nevertheless, Twotimer® figs are, of course, the high art of fig cultivation: here, after the fourth year of standing, the right pruning is also particularly decisive in order to give both yields a boost. Despite all the difficulties and challenges, the Twotimer® figs have one advantage: even in unfavourable conditions and with cultivation errors, at least a partial yield should be possible in most years.
So find out about the three types of figs before you buy them. We have written detailed texts in the respective categories where you can learn how the three types of figs work.
I hope now, of course, that you still want to plant figs! Even if there is a second problem area:
Pruning and fertilisation
Pruning is a relatively new experience for the age-old cultivated fig and you should not overwhelm or even confuse them with it. I strongly advise not pruning at all for the first three to four years and allow the fig to grow naturally. This way it will find its own balance between shoot growth and fruit set – and finally start to fruit. Even with non-bearing older fig trees, the most promising measure is to refrain from pruning for a few years at first. The same restraint applies to fertilising. Of course you have to fertilise a fig in a pot, but please be rather stingy with your mild gifts. Outdoors, you should not fertilise at all except when planting – fertilising is forbidden on non-bearing older fig trees. The fig was rather hungry as it grew big and old; it was able to cope with that. If it receives food in abundance, it only emphasises vegetative shoot growth and grows skywards. Why should it set fruit when everything is offered and delivered to it free of charge?
Fruit set and fruit development
Here it is important to know that our northern figs have to manage without pollination because the necessary pollinator wasp does not exist north of the Alps. And we don't even have to wait for it to immigrate now (this will certainly happen sooner or later). No, the fig, supported by human selection, has developed a mechanism to bear fruit parthenocarpically, i.e. without fertilisation... However, this mechanism is very delicate, complicated and also difficult to understand (for the fig and for us). One can imagine it in such a way that the fig tree, at a certain fruit size, ultimately waits for the fruits (barely the size of a nut) to be fertilised. This stage can usually be recognised when the fig growth stops for a certain time. Growth is restarted at the parthenocarpic fruit set by the fact that the internally stressed fig tree itself secretes growth hormones comparable to those triggered by fertilisation. If the fig tree is disturbed at this stage (by pruning, fertilisation, by very severe drought, wetness and other signals unexpected by the fig) it may also decide to discard the young unfertilised fig flowers. Fig fruits are nothing other than a collection of female fig blossoms turned inside out, from which the fig flesh then develops after real or unreal parthenocarpic 'fertilisation'.
And another thing: to make matters worse, there are also fig varieties – such as the 'Desert King' presented in this gardening letter – that are called San Pedro figs. These can develop parthenocarpic summer figs without any problems, but the autumn figs absolutely need pollination. With such varieties, therefore, one should not be surprised or disappointed if the autumn figs are dropped unripe. This is not a bad thing because these types of figs then concentrate all the more on the summer fig yield...
Winter hardiness and winter protection for fig trees
This is perhaps the biggest problem, but can be solved relatively easily. Figs are hardy down to -12°C, our best northern figs down to around -15°C. However, this is only the case if the wood is relatively old and thick, i.e. if the fig tree already has a few years under its belt. So we can easily improve the winter hardiness by planting a fig that is as big as possible in a bigger pot. This is also the reason why we only offer stronger fig plants in 5 L or 15 L pots; smaller figs have no place in the garden because they are much too susceptible to the winter coldness.
And when protecting potted figs, but also planted figs, never forget the most important advice: protection against winter heat is much more important than protection against the winter coldness. The most dangerous thing for the fig is usually not the absolutely low temperature, but the warm winter sun, which is then followed by another cold period (in January to April). Finally: the very best insurance for a long fig life is deep planting. If a fig has been planted out in one place for two years and is then hit by a hard winter, it will sprout again with 90% certainty in May to July, but only if it was planted deep enough to begin with. The top of the pot should always be covered with 15-20 cm of topsoil.
