Should I Thin My Miniature Fig Forest?

As many of you may know, Texas had a wild, wild winter storm come through last February. Due to this, my very well established fig tree's branches died. I cut them back to allow the new growth to bounce in quickly... and so it has!

But now I have so much new growth I'm not sure what to do with it! Do I leave it all for this first year of growing and thin it in the winter or should I thin it now?

Regardless of when I thin it... how many main branches should I leave? I'm thinking 3 due to the size of ground it is covering. Maybe 2 is better...?
I'm a tree noob, please help :)

If your original fig was grafted, then you might be growing from whatever rootstock was used. Regardless, leave it alone for a few years. Let it grow and see what it does. If it doesn’t find its own natural shape that you agree with, wait until winter and prune it towards your desired shape. Figs are very forgiving and easy.

Good Luck!

are many figs grafted? as easy as it is to propagate them via cuttings, i wouldn’t expect it to be worthwhile to graft...

either way, i agree, just let it do what it wants this year. in my area, you usually expect some winter dieback on figs, so we want as many new stems (i.e. places where fruit can grow) as they’re willing to give us. if it does something funny, you can always prune during the next dormancy.

Every named varietal of fig came from a cutting taken from the original tree or a clone of it (not from seed). Every fig tree I have ever seen at any Home Depot or Lowe’s or nursery has been grafted (so they can control the characteristics of the tree, i.e dwarf, semi dwarf, disease or rot resistant, etc). There are a lot of figs in the world that came up from seeds as volunteers, but few of them are left to grow in yards. So it’s a pretty safe guess that this tree came from a nursery/home store.

If any fruit tree (of any type, apple, stone fruit, etc) is listed as any popular named varietal, it’s a cloned tree (grafted, rooted cuttings, air or ground layered). Any named varietal of fruit anyone has ever eaten came from a cloned tree (not from seed).

For the record, the graft and the root stocks do not mix DNA, that can only be done by nature when she makes a new seed or by misguided people when they engineer a GMO in a lab.

I like growing fruit trees from seeds because I have no idea what the fruit is going to be. Most of the time, the fruit isn’t as good as the named varietal fruit it came from, but its fun and interesting regardless. There is a very slight chance to get something brand new, that becomes the next great varietal. If that happens, then I will share with the world via grafting/cuttings/scions/ layering. And that is a fun idea because then I get to name it.

Good Luck!

I have a fig that just hit year 3, started as a 3' tall plant and is now about 12' tall and 8 feet wide. I would move one of those two plants over a bit, give them 8-10' of space. I don't see a graft on mine, but it's 3-4" thick at the base, maybe whatever was there grew over? Nothing stopping you from getting a third plant, maybe one that fruits at a different time or perhaps the same time so the birds don't get all of them before you do.

Agreed.  One of those plants should be moved for proper spacing.  The closest you can realistically go is maybe 6 feet, only if you're looking to form a hedge.  You'd have to prune the plants accordingly once dormant.  I've always been recommended to keep 3-6 main branches that are evenly spaced apart.  You want an open case shape to light and air flow, which improves ripening and reduces risk of disease.  You can easily get a third tree by placing a strong, straight branch that you cut off into a container with soil or perlite.  It will root easily, unless you're looking to get a third variety.  Figs are so good!  Who wouldn't want more varieties?!

If it was an old fig in particular, it may not have been grafted.  Lots are started from cuttings, particularly on old homesteads or communities where people would just share cuttings among the community.  Did you plant it?  If you recall where you bought it from, you could ask if it was grafted and on what variety.  For example, One Green World has a page about grafting figs, and what they commonly use as the rootstock (Desert King in their case): One Green World grafting figs  They even talk about turning your fig into a multi-variety fig through grafting! I'd never thought of that.

But no matter what, one thing you could do now is dig up the sections you don't want (if you are reducing crowding) and use those to start figs in another area of the yard.  Or give them away, or trade for something!

And I have one piece of hard-learned advice - fig roots can be super vigorous and search out water sources.  Try not to plant anywhere at all near your septic, drainfield, sewer lines, drain lines, house plumbing, etc.

I'm sorry your plant died back, but it looks very vigorous and happy to start a new life.  When choosing the form, you might take a look at pictures online of figs.  In Oregon, most people let them grow as a bush, which is fine but does take up a bunch of space.  But the most beautiful one I ever saw was in a backyard, and at first I didn't realize what it was! It had been trained into a beautiful, shade-producing tree that was at least 20 feet wide.  The trunk was huge and the tree was covered in figs right above head level.  Very nice.  I had not realized you could get a fig to do that.  I think it would only work with the standard and vigorous varieties, versus the patio ones.

Paul Eusey wrote: Any named varietal of fruit anyone has ever eaten came from a cloned tree (not from seed).

Pretty sure that no-one would have bothered cloning or naming a fruit variety if they hadn't eaten a good fruit off a tree grown from seed.  They all started somewhere!

Kim Goodwin wrote:

They even talk about turning your fig into a multi-variety fig through grafting! I'd never thought of that.

Multi grafted trees were all the rage a few decades ago but have been waning in popularity. The problem is that one of the varietals usually ends up dominating the tree and affects the flavors and characteristics of the other grafts. On a fig, that might not matter as much, but on other types such as citrus or apple or even stone fruits it makes a big difference. (Sometimes certain rootstocks don’t play nice (in a similar fashion) with the grafted tree, which is part of the reason why certain named rootstocks are far more popular than others, they play nice and are much easier to be successful with).

Syracuse University Professor Sam Van Aken grafted 40 varietals of stone fruits onto a single tree (he was scrambling to save a couple old orchards before they tore the trees out and just needed to preserve the genetics so the varietals didn’t die out). His story got quite a bit of publicity, but it is very easy to duplicate. Most home store and nurseries only sell multi grated trees with 3 to 5 varietals, (although I haven’t seen the 5’s in a while, I have only seen the 3 varietal grafted trees in the past few years).

Here is a link to a story and video about Sam and his 40 varietal tree.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tree-of-40-forty-fruit-sam-van-aken/#app

Burra Maluca wrote:

Paul Eusey wrote: Any named varietal of fruit anyone has ever eaten came from a cloned tree (not from seed).

Pretty sure that no-one would have bothered cloning or naming a fruit variety if they hadn't eaten a good fruit off a tree grown from seed.  They all started somewhere!

Yes, that is exactly right…

Which is why I wrote the following on that same post you quoted…

Paul Eusey wrote:

I like growing fruit trees from seeds because I have no idea what the fruit is going to be. Most of the time, the fruit isn’t as good as the named varietal fruit it came from, but its fun and interesting regardless. There is a very slight chance to get something brand new, that becomes the next great varietal. If that happens, then I will share with the world via grafting/cuttings/scions/ layering. And that is a fun idea because then I get to name it.

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Well I'll be darned, I had no idea my post was receiving all of these replies!

Now that I'm finally here to read them all... I don't know if the tree was grafted or not as it was a gift. I'm assuming it is not since it began as one tree and grew into a cluster through random suckers that came up.

And on that note, to those of you recommending I dig one up to move to another location... I imagine this would not be very practical since they are coming from one large root system.
Of course I still can cut some down and root them, and do this I will this winter! This growth is way better than what I tried rooting from this past winter.

Thank you all for the assistance! I will wait and watch what the tree does :)
The land owners may or may not sell in the next year, so who knows if I can help shape it in the next couple of years.