Moving my fig tree

[BertieFox]

I think:

Best for flavour (subjective, but WhatTheHeck!) White Marseilles and Rouge de Bordeaux. Neither are hardy so need to be container-grown and brought in for the Winter.

This subject of hardiness is very strange. We have sometimes had temperatures in winter here of minus 15 and minus 21 on one occasion, with minus 10 being fairly common, but things like these figs have come through with no problem. Likewise cannas and dahlias come back every year. Now back in the west of the UK where we rarely had much below minus 6 or 7, we never kept a dahlia or canna going and they just rotted in the ground, and tender trees like figs found it difficult too.

Maybe it is the combination of wet and cold we get in the UK which is the real killer, so what I guess I am trying to say is that something like White Marseilles might be ok in the drier parts of the UK like East Anglia.

[Kristen]

Wet and Cold is definitely the main part of the problem - which is what makes comparison with USA Hardiness Zone nomenclature Not Much Cop. Increasing drainage can help a lot for plants that are borderline hardy (along with planting against a South facing wall and so on)

Days on which temperature rises well compensate for cold nights for many plants, here in UK we don't get much temperature rise in mid winter after cold nights because the sun angle is too low.

[lfnfan]

Great info, all. Thanks very much. I will move the tree this winter.

Being a complete novice at moving trees, a couple of quite mundane questions arise:

- how much of the tree's roots should I aim to take (that thing is gonna be heavy)?

- should I put special soil / food / chemicals (??) in the new hole?

Many thanks!

ps - for those ex-pats in this thread: the autumn weather has arrived with a vengeance here in the UK, wind, rain galore, and dark mornings and evenings. Winter feels like it's just around the corner...roll on spring!

[Kristen]

- how much of the tree's roots should I aim to take (that thing is gonna be heavy)?

As much as you can. It probably won't be as heavy as you think (unless the tree is very big). Sliding the plant and root-ball out onto, say, a tarpaulin can help - wrap the roots and then tow / drag it, or slide it up onto a trolley / barrow (if you've got a fair distance to move it)

- should I put special soil / food / chemicals (??) in the new hole?

Plenty of organic matter (leaf mould, compost, rotted manure) mixed in with the soil in the planting hole. Loosen the soil in the bottom of the planting hole to assist drainage.

But there are schools of thought - one says that if you improve the soil in the planting hole then the roots won't bother to venture outside that, so "no improvement" will mean that the roots spread out more quickly. But I don't do that

Some Rootgrow to encourage root regrowth (make sure it is in contact with the roots / rootball, don't sprinkle it in the planting hole (for example)

for those ex-pats in this thread: the autumn weather has arrived with a vengeance here in the UK, wind, rain galore, and dark mornings and evenings. Winter feels like it's just around the corner...roll on spring!

It will be like Summer again by the weekend, should be 20-25C - well, in the South at least