Are you saying that the fig appeared to be coming out of dormancy (had green tips and all) and the leaf buds were swelling up and then they all of a sudden turned brown and dry? And no leaves ever emerged from them?

It sounds like something happened within the rootzone of the fig within the pot, but you'd need to give us further information about whether you were watering the fig at all, a lot, not much; how big the pot was that it was growing in; any adverse conditions it might've encountered (weed killer or other herbicide accidentally gotten onto it, something nasty spilled into the pot that got to the roots), etc. It's unusual for the fig to be coming out of dormancy with new growth and then for that new growth to brown up and die (crumble away), unless something killed it from beneath the soil line. I do feel for you, especially if it's mysterious and you need to know what went wrong to keep it from happening again. Any other clues? Exposed to a really hard freeze at time of coming out of dormancy, that could've gotten to the root zone, also?

Sherry

Did you leave it out on the deck all winter? How cold did it get? You said the roots look ok. Do you mean ok, other than being dead? Figs in pots are very sensitive to cold, as the roots are much less tolerant than the top, which is not that hardy to start with.

Don't assume anything is dead until it is dead...

I had two Alma's that did not seem to make it through the fridge experiment this past winter. All of my trees except for those two leafed out in Feb and March. One of the two Almas began leafing out from the base last week. Coincidentally enough, a friend asked me about it a few days before... asking "are you growing sticks, now?" I indicated I had been too lazy to dump them and I needed to because I need the pots. Then I accidentally knocked one of them over while pulling the garden hose around it and found out it was growing.

If you've repotted your tree, you might want to soak the soil with some superthrive diluted in water. Otherwise, keep in the shade until the roots begin growing again. It may not be dead.

~james

Yes, new buds formed, and I waited ... and waited ... for them to open. They never did. When I looked closely I saw that they were brown and crumbly. The stems were dead, all the way down to about 1 inch from the larger trunk piece.

I noticed that some of the roots at the very top had come uncovered -- lying above the main soil line.

The pot it was in was very large clay -- the kind I cannot lift. It did great last year, putting out the one fig.

It sat on the deck over the not-too-cold winter, and other plants that sat out there did not die. It came to me from a mother fig tree up on the high plain in Eastern Oregon, so should have been hardy since the mother lives in the ground in colder conditions than where my home is.

I wonder if it was overwatered or underwatered -- in the first few weeks I did not water it a whole lot, then I began to worry so watered it a lot more.

oh well. live and learn. I'll just keep my eyes peeled for another one. Maybe the friends who gave it to us as a gift have another one.

:)
d

It sounds disappointing, but here are a few follow-up thoughts, maybe they'll be helpful with the next fig.

If you had the fig in a container, especially in a clay one which would tend to retain the cold, the roots would be exposed to a colder minimum temperature than the mother fig would if it's an in-ground tree, because the ground temperature insulates the roots better than your container would. If you had any temperatures that were in the 'teens for any length of time during the winter or even as the plant was coming out of dormancy, there could've been damage to the roots. But that's just a consideration, because you had said the winter was not-so-cold. I'm also wondering if there was a period where the fig had started to develop those new buds because of a warming trend, and then you got some extra-cold nights that hurt the plant tissue in the stems and buds once it had begun growing again (a vulnerable time to be exposed to a freeze). Drought conditions can also do that, or changes in the moisture levels the roots experience at crucial times. I had ordered a Desert King fig from a nursery out in the PNW this spring, it arrived in April and had a green terminal tip of its main trunk when I unpackaged it. I put it into its new pot, but am thinking it had gone into shipping shock, because that bud dried a fair amount and didn't do anything (though the tree itself was still alive) for two months. The plant has just leafed out finally within the past two weeks, so it's taken two months to recover from its bare-rooting and shipping traumas.

Given what my Desert King fig has shown me, I'm going to stay hopeful on your fig having some possible life left in it - when you checked the stems, was there green to the cambium when you cut back on the branches? how did you test the stems to see if they were dead, by cutting back in small sections from the tips toward the main trunk? if you still have green cambium at all, then as James said, stay optimistic, keep it in the shade, don't drown it but keep it moist, and hope for the best!

Sherry

Wow -- my fig tree may be alive after all!

I shoved it into a shallow bonsai-type pot and have been watering it a lot, thinking "why not experiment and see if it will grow as a bonsai?" If it's dead, nothing to lose.

So yesterday I noticed a small red bump WAY DOWN near the main trunk.

ALL of the existing branches appear to be dead. There is no green as I cut them inch by inch downward. They are dead white in the middle and dried up light yellow around that.

If this little bump is a new branch trying to come out of the main trunk, then it will live and just have to regrow everything from there.

Needless to say I put it back into a regular pot, but not the huge one it was in before.

I'll keep you posted.

:)
d

Here is the Alma I was referring to:

Let yours dry out a bit between waterings, and otherwise leave it alone for a bit, while it does its thing.

~james

will do :)