I think Sal's and Brown Turkey are the most cold hardy of your choices. Even better choices would be Florea and Marseilles VS Black. I hear the JH Adriatic variety is cold hardy, excellent fruit, but late ripening. In 6b you should try to at least give a break from northwest winds. I doubt Black Madeira or Fico Preto would make it, but would be great pot plants to protect in winter. Encanto farms might be good source for Marselles VS and Florea.

I am trying to do something similar in Middle TN, 7 a/b
Good luck

Hi,

When the fig tree is small, it needs to be protected during winter regardless of variety in cold area.

These would be 3 year old trees about 1 inch caliper, 5 feet tall.

I'm in the south but have read many good reports of Adriatic, Genoa, Sal's, Chicago Hardy, VDB concerning cold hardyness.

Nordland is a good fig for cold winter areas.

Here in zone 7 (NC) figs that seem to be the most cold tolerant and productive are hardy chicago and celeste. Verns brown turkey and LSU gold are 2 that I have read are very cold tolerant and early ripening. I have these but this will be their 1st winter so I cannot say for sure. Most of the others you mention I have no experience with.

BT and HC seem very cold hardy to me but if they're grown in pots and wintered in garage or somewhere then it doesn't really matter how cold hardy they are. Maybe only affects how early/late you bring em outside.

We are in a zone 5b/6a. Because we wanted to have fresh figs that we could grow outside with out winter protection. We started testing for cold hardy figs maybe 8 to 10 years ago.

At the time, Hardy Chicago was considered the most cold hardy fig there was. Because it was discovered growing in a suburb of Chicago. Which is a zone 5b/6a.

But, after testing it here for some 10 years we found it was not. But, that was for our cold zone 5b/6a.

With any one trying to grow northern climate cold hardy figs, in zone 6b, a good number of figs for that zone, have been discovered in the last twenty or so years. At the time this information made us very happy. But, that was because we thought we were in a zone 6b. Then we found out that we were not. After watching figs in our collection like Hardy Chicago get top killed. We started all over again, looking for figs that would be successful in our 5b/6a zone.

We have some twenty figs in here at our home that we have been testing, for the last 8 to 10 years.

We found that there were only a few that could take our cold 5b/6a zone

But, for any gardener in a zone 6b, there are about half dozen or so figs that one can grow.

I have not figured out how to make attachments to this forum. But, I can send our test results to any one who would like to see what will grow in a zone 6b with out winter protection, If you send to me a email to robertcharper@gmail.com I will attach the list to your return email.

Bob Harper

Bob, can you at least list the most hardy fig varieties here? Thanks. Or email me your file and I can post it.

Scott

I'm interested Bob, please list here if possible.

Hi, new to the forum. I would like to see that list as well, as I move between Tennessee and Montana. On one site I saw that Celeste and Chicago were both cold-hardy enuff to grow in both states/climates.
Also, I have never had anything to do with growing trees from cuttings, so I'd like to know if there are any good sites to explain how to do it, and also if there are any places to get free/cheap cuttings to get started. I went to a site named Ty-Ty but I can't afford to learn/practice at $50.00 per plant. There seems to be a lot of different varieties available on ebay for pretty cheap prices, but since I don't know how to start/grow them indoors (or if you even can), and I don't know which would be better to get - MT can get to -40 for a couple of weeks each winter, and TN normally only gets to double digits above Zero; I would hate to spend the bucks and end up killing them :(.
THX for any help or advice you folks can give.

Hi JAPattison
Not sure who said that the figs would do well in Montana, but there you had better grow them in pots and keep them for the winter in a protected area such as a unheated basement or garage where the temp stays a lot higher than -40

This forum is relatively quiet. You will find a lot of information online and helpful people at the Figs 4 Fun site (not bashing this site, just want to help you out)

Also, TyTy = ripoff/cheats according to many who have bought plants there

Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Figs 4 Fun Forum

I live north of toronto and i have many varieties of trees and brunswick seems to be toughest for me.

Massimo, do you have your figs in pots or planted in ground?

Also, which is your most cold hardy and productive fig?

Bob Harper

I don't live in 6b anymore (in 7b now), but we had a particularly cold winter, with lows significantly lower than are typical for the zone.

My Green Ischia and Black Mission both are still alive. Both were planted in the fall, and were in 3g pots previous, so these aren't big trees. They had no protection, but did have some light woods to the North side of them, which would have stopped some of the wind.