How and Why to Prune Fig Trees

welcome to Hort tube my name is Jim Putnam and today I'm gonna talk to you about why it's important to prune your fig trees I have two big trees behind me here both of them are brown turkey the one on this side is about 15 feet in the center of the tree absolutely no reason to have let it get this tall all of the figs are on this year's growth in the foot of growth or so that I got this year since April it's about July now as I'm shooting this and some of the figs are starting to mature I can't reach 85% of the figs that are on this tree it really needed to be cut over the years to probably about four feet in height in the late winter and then you'd get that foot or two feet of growth on it and your figs would be about head high right now instead you would need a ladder to get up in here it's got beautiful figs on it there's really just no point to the bottom 10 feet of growth or so of this tree it really is gonna just need to be almost salt off this winter it's gonna be so extreme now that I'm in all likelihood going to not get as many figs for a couple years as it recovers from that victory on this side of me is a great example of what happens when you don't prune your fig tree for a prolonged period of time we had some ice this winter that God on this tree and it's actually cracked it open it bent the whole tree over and then cracked it open in the middle I've lost massive limbs on the street it still has some figs on it but it's back to square one with this tree this tree is going to need to be cut probably down to three feet in height or so to try to get it to recover from this so this is another reason why you definitely need to prune them they can actually be very badly damaged in the wintertime with any kind of ice or snow or even heavy wind event could have caused this as well here's the close-up of where this tree has actually been just absolutely pulled from the ground cracks open and it's all leaning off to the right even the pieces here still 12 feet up there beautiful figs up there don't know how I'm going to get them but they are beautiful figs but again this trees just gonna have to be cut down to a about three feet as is the other one the other one is very healthy it's got a beautiful trunk down at the bottom but again it just keeps going up and up and up and like I say it's probably 15 feet in the middle and you can see these absolutely beautiful figs all over this tree and I'll get lots of them off of it but it certainly be easier if they were down around head height like I was saying all the figs are in this year's growth about a foot back if I had this tree under control after these figs were picked and finished I would take this limb back right here to that main branch and cut it right there and next year I probably get a side branch maybe here that would come out you know maybe a foot and I'd get the figs on the other side of that branch in all likelihood it'd be very easy like I say I've got to be major surgery to these but I want to give you an example of how you would prune a smaller plant would just be really to take the growth from this year off of it once you're at the height where you want to maintain it it will take several years to get there I get this question all the time about why isn't my fig plant growing it takes four or five years to reach the point where you're going to get a big harvest of figs it's just not very typical of a fig to just go in the ground and take off very quickly so I would always expect it to take three or four or maybe even five years to get a big harvest and at that point you're gonna start your every late winter pruning to try to prevent what's happened here to these plants from either getting too large or like this one over here actually being damaged by its own size the first few years your figs are in the ground really all you need to do is tip prune them just take the very tip of each branch off in the late winter that will create some additional branching that following spring once your plant gets up into that four five six foot height range every late winter before it starts leafing out take it down to about four feet in height that should be ideal your fig we'll end up about head height so thanks for watching and if this video was helpful please hit the like button and subscribe to my channel for future videos also comment below with any questions you have about pruning fix thanks again [Music]

Channel: HortTube with Jim Putnam

Views: 439,066

Keywords: fig plants, fig trees, pruning figs, cutting back figs, ice damage, wind damage, snow damage, pruning plants, gardening, planting, landscaping, fruit plants, picking fruit

Id: hH7wOrBZK5M

Length: 4min 50sec (290 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 28 2017