Hey, those are some pretty cool pics! The process is called airlayering. You can see more pics of that process in the archives on this forum and on the figs4fun forum. This is by far my favorite way to propagate more trees.

Good pictures. I like what this guy is doing. growing thing should not be fancy. It should be simply the nature's way. Using whatever resource is available to make it work.

Thanks for posting the really nice pictures. The fig trees look nice and healthy!
Terry

I wqent back today to finish his appliance repair. He let me take three cuttings from his trees. One is black figs, one is white figs, and one is RED FIGS. Red figs? Strange leaves on that one. This is going to be good!

The Greeks do other things. Creative creatures! They just lay dormant cuttings in a small trench, cover with 1/2" soil, and in spring, you got Fig Trees! Works with Grapevine cuttings too!

I am a huge fan of air layering! And Greeks. Love those dolmadas made with the leaves of my vines!

Hey there Desertdance.

My best friend is a Greek bouzuki (sp?) player up in Boston. No figs up there, but his uncle down here had a fig tree (now mine)and the figs are good on it. In a different thread, I talked about that fig tree.

There is a large Greek community here, centered around those sponge-diving guys down in Tarpon Springs. I now have ten fig trees of 6 different varieties, all compliments of those kind hearted Greek customers of mine. You Greeks rock. Your figs rock even more!

went to my parents' house earlier this week, was looking around the back yard, and noticed my dad had wrapped one of the fig branch with a towel and filled with dirt, and thought about this topic. i believe its a celeste, we've had it for over 30 years.

Hello houstontexas123

Nice looking fig tree your dad has there! Perfect leaves, nice general shape. Does he get plenty of good figs? Does he fertilize/mulch? And yes, I see what he did there. He knows his stuff. Yes he does.

Why can I not see the photo, too?

noss

the soil in their area is a rich black soil, he hardly ever fertilize any of the fruit trees or veggies.

no fert or mulch on the fig. it produces good sized crops, but the birds and squirrels get a chunk of the figs. my mom eats a few now and then, and my aunt a few houses down gets some, and he dries and freezes the extras (mainly for a few chinese soups).

houstontexas123,
I think that if dad covers that towel with some
plastic or tin-foil; the soil clump will retain
moisture for a longer time with some better success.
Unless he is misting it 1-2 times a day...

Today, the photo showed up. That's a pretty tree and those leaves are so healthy-looking.

noss

So, when doing this, wrapping the tree with a towel and soil, or a coffee can and soil, do you simply just wrap it, or do you score the bark under the soil or anything special?

Hello Shylock,

The old Greek guy would cut two long slices thru the bark on the bottom of the place he wanted to put into the pots. It encourages roots. Others do nothing, and then others remove a ring all the way around the branch before wrapping it.

When my trees get bigger, I'll play with this a bit. And if you try it, please stay in touch and post pics!