Fig - Think the frost killed it

[oliveau]

We have a Brown turkey fig planted on a south facing wall and its been there for 8 years.

Here in Central France when we had the snow in February we had 10 days when the temperature was continually below freezing, dropping as low as -16.

We lost a lot of shrubs, and the climbing roses have a lot of frost damage as well - a lot of black dead wood to cut off. Even the big Bay tree in the garden was damaged and I have had to cut it down to let it regenerate.

The fig is showing no sign of life, not even a bud, although the wood looks quite healthy.
Bearing in mind that April has been unseasonably cold, should i wait and see, or should I cut it down in the hope it too will regenerate from the base?

[chris]

Have you scratched the bark with your fingernail? If not, try it, if it's green then it's alive

My brown turkey is only just showing buds now, but other folk in my area for example have leaves out already..

[oliveau]

I saw some new fig trees in the local Brico last week, and they looked just like mine.

I think the problem this year was that the mild winter before the cold snap fooled plants into early growth, and the sap was rising early which got frozen.

[roitelet]

I have lost several shrubs too. I have cut off all the dead wood and there are signs of life at the base. Just wait and see. When the weather improves there may be signs of life.

[BUFFS]

i would do nothing until at least midsummer,we had two bad winters,down to -13 to -16 for weeks on end and it really does seem to hammer the fig,but it keeps coming back,i give it a feed of Blood Fish andBone when it has put some leaves on,but the late start means no fruit for the year being so northerly,good luck with it...

[VirginVegGrower]

Mine is still wrapped despite being planted outside. As others have said, wait and see. They are not good with such extreme temperature drops and for this reason, even in Italy they are often covered to protect the developing fruits against frosts.

[FB.]

I would give it more time.
It may be dead above ground, but the roots may regenerate a new plant; some local palm trees were killed in the cold winter of 2010-11, but regrew from the roots.
Since figs are not grafted (they are on their own roots) it would grow back into a Brown Turkey fig.
Also, since it will have a large, established root system, it will regrow in half the time that it'd take a new plant.

For what it's worth, we had a week where temperatures were below freezing; some days didn't get above -5'C and we had at least two consecutive nights with temperatues down to -14'C.

My Brown Turkey is just beginning to show signs of buds swelling, as is its Black Hamburg companion, but many of my fruit trees have been very slow to come out of dormancy.
For example: Irish Peach apple would normally flower for me in mid-April (it's known for being one of the first apples to flower each season) But it is only just opening its first flowers now.
My Court Pendu Plat and Crawley Beauty (known for being late out of dormancy) show no signs of life yet.

[scarey55]

I would tend to agree and leave it. This is what mine was like the first year after I left it out during the winter about 4 years ago, you can just see the new growth starting to emerge (as FB said).
It has just started to leaf out again this year and is easily 4 feet high and I had about 12 ripe figs from it last year. There's still hope.