Hi all,

We bought a house in 2012, and there are two fig trees in the back yard against our garage. That summer and summer of 2013 we got several dozen delicious figs (stuff with goat cheese and wrap in bacon, yum!).

Winter of 2013-2014, and 2014-2015 were very rough here. We live in the Niagara region in Ontario, Canada. Both these last two years the figs have died above ground, with all growth starting from the ground in spring.

Last year they grew quite well, got upto about 5-6ft tall and had a few dozen figs on them, but they never got ripe before frost arrived in the fall. I'm assuming this is because they lost a lot of time growing the branches up from the ground.

Same thing this year with the cold winter and starting over from the ground. We did get a bit earlier of a spring this year so I'm hopeful we may get some usable fruit.

Each year for winter I've wrapped the fig trees loosely in some black weed blocker and then in burlap. This worked great the first winter, but wasn't enough to keep the above ground stuff alive the last two winters. It did prevent them from totally dying, as happened to my neighbours fig trees which he had only wrapped in burlap.

So a couple questions:

1-Can anyone identify the variety from the included pictures?

2-If I were to dig out the bushes when they go dormant this winter, and transplant into some big 3ft wide x 2ft deep containers, and store in the garage, would they likely survive? If we did this, we would keep them in containers permanently, moving the containers outside in spring and back into the garage in winter.

3-If they are unlikely to survive transplant, any other thoughts for helping them through the winter? I've heard of some people sticking an incandescent light bulb inside the wrapped up figs to keep them a bit warmer.

I'm thankful for any advice.

PS - one small positive from the dead branches we had to cutoff, they have a very sweet smell when you burn them. I've tried using them for smoking meat and it gives an interesting flavour.