Wake Up! Caring for Fig Trees in Spring
How to care for potted fig trees in the spring, as they come out of dormancy.
By Steven Biggs
How to Care for Potted Fig Trees in Spring
Care for a fig tree in spring. Waking up and caring for potted fig trees in the spring.
It happens every spring: The weather is warm so I move my potted fig plants out of the garage and onto my driveway. It’s time to wake up!
Then…we get a frost warning or cold winds. So I haul my fig plants back into the garage.
I call it the springtime fig shuffle. Some people call it the dance of the figs.
Whatever you call it, it’s heavy work.
But there’s a good reason for the shuffle: Even though dormant fig trees withstand frost, fig trees that are waking up are damaged by frost.
If you’re wondering what to do with your potted fig trees in the spring, keep reading for tips and ideas.
Why Wake up Fig Trees if There’s Still a Risk of Frost?
The weather is warm so I move my potted fig plants out of the garage and onto my driveway. It’s time to wake up!
It would be easier to wait for frost-free weather before moving potted fig plants outdoors. Here’s why not to wait:
Earlier Harvest. Season length limits fig harvests in cold climates. An early start gives more time for figs to ripen before the season is over.
Good Growth. Sometimes fig plants wake up early and start to grow indoors, in dim light. That gives lanky growth. But the bright light outdoors gives compact growth.
Top Tip for Spring Fig Care
Sometimes fig plants wake up early and start to grow indoors, in dim light. That gives lanky growth. But the bright light outdoors gives compact growth.
Treat your fig plants like tender annuals once they begin to come out of dormancy and buds start to swell. Protect them from frost and cold wind.
How Early to Wake Up Figs?
An early start is always good – as long as it suits you, and your style of gardening.
Do what works in your situation. If you’ll be away in the spring and can’t do the dance of the figs when there’s a frost warning, it might be better to wait.
Waking up Your Figs
When your dormant fig trees get warmth and light, they start to wake up and grow.
To start waking up my figs while they’re still in the garage, I raise the temperature. Then, as buds start to swell, and as we get warm, bright days, I take them out of the garage and onto my driveway.
I wake up my potted fig trees about a month before our frost-free weather arrives. Some cold-climate fig growers do it earlier (some even set up artificial lighting to give their figs trees a very early start).
A Protected Space Helps
A bright, protected space like this temporary greenhouse can save you shuffling around potted fig plants on cold nights.
If you want to wake up your fig plants early but want less work, a bright, protected space can save you shuffling around potted fig plants on cold nights.
That bright, protected space could be a three-season sun porch. Sun porches often freeze over the winter, but in the spring they provide figs bright conditions and usually stay above freezing.
A protected space could also be something temporary, such as a hoop house, lean-to, or temporary greenhouse.
But if you don’t have this sort of protected space, you just do the dance of the figs.
What if there is a Risk of Frost?
When the forecast is for freezing temperatures, I move my potted fig plants back into the protection of the garage.
But what if the forecast is for a temperature that will be a couple of degrees above freezing? In that case I drape a blanket or sheet over my fig plants…just in case the forecast is wrong.
And remember: Some parts of your property might have a “microclimate” and be slightly warmer than others.
Harden Off Figs that Start Growing Indoors
Even if you supply artificial light to your fig plants indoors, they should be “hardened off” before placing them in full sunlight outdoors.
Hardening off just means gradually getting the plant used to bright sunlight, cooler temperatures, and wind.
If you have a shaded spot, that’s a great place to start hardening off your fig plants. I have an overhang off of my garage, and the area underneath it gets a couple of hours of morning sun. That’s where I harden off any figs that have started to grow indoors. Their tender buds and little leaves won’t get scalded by strong sun or cold wind.
If your fig plants are still dormant when you move them outdoors, they are less fragile than plants with small leaves.
Get Your Fig Trees Through Winter
And eat fresh homegrown figs!
FAQ: Fig Plants in Spring
Is there an easier way to move around potted fig plants?
Put your potted figs on dollies!
Prevent scalding of new growth on fig plants by hardening off the plants in a shaded, protected protected space.
Do I need to wake up the fig plants early if it’s just for the breba crop?
Good question. No. If you wake them up later, your breba crop will be a bit later…but still well before fall frosts arrive. So there’s no downside to waking up your breba-producing fig plants later.
But…if you want to get both a breba and a main crop figs from the plants, an early start gives more time for those main-crop figs to ripen at the end of the summer.
Looking for breba fig varieties? Check out the Guide to Cold-Climate Fig Varieties.
What about in-ground figs that are wrapped or buried?
An early wake-up helps extend the growing season for in-ground figs too. The only thing to remember is that you can’t easily move them inside if there’s a cold spell.
For the fig trees I lay flat and bury, I start to remove the mulch early to allow the soil to warm up – but I don’t stand up the tree early. That way, if I need to protect it, I can throw a bit of mulch back over the top of it.
Should I feed my fig as I’m waking it up?
No, not yet. Feed once it’s actively growing.
How moist should I keep the soil?
While potted fig trees are dormant, keep the soil on the dry side of moist. But as they begin to grow, I give them a bit more water.
The little leaves and figs on my plant fell off. What happened?
Could be cold wind or cold temperatures. To prevent this, harden off your fig plant, starting in a protected space.
What about pruning in spring?
Check out the Cold-Climate Guide to How to Prune a Fig Tree
More Information About Growing Figs
Books About Growing Figs in Cold Climates
Fig Masterclass
Find Out How to Grow Your Own Figs
Harvest more figs this year! Grow Figs in Cold Climates Masterclass shows you how to grow a fig tree in a pot, or outside with protection. So you can harvest lots of figs!
Olives: Another Exotic Crop for Cold Climates
Potted Figs Waking up Early? Here’s Why, and What You Can Do
Your potted figs are leafing out early... When fig trees come out of dormancy early, you need to know what to do next so that you can still harvest figs. Find out what to do—and how to avoid figs waking up early next year.
By Steven Biggs
How to Prevent Dormant Potted Fig Trees Leafing Out Early
“HELP…my fig tree is growing already!”
I often see this sort of e-mail subject line in my inbox in late winter. If your dormant fig trees are sprouting too early, you’re not alone.
Dormant fig trees are easy to care for. But when conditions aren’t right, they come out of dormancy early and start growing sooner than you want!
And when they start growing early, in dim light, you get lanky growth and fruit that might not make it to maturity.
Keep reading. This post will help you decide what to do if your fig tree is leafing out early.
The Problem When Your Fig Tree is Awake Early
Fig tree leafing out early, in a crawl space with no light. Notice the lank, yellow growth.
In cold climates, where fig trees are not hardy, we can store them as dormant trees over the winter.
But if the fig trees wake up early, it can affect your fig harvest!
Growing figs indoors over the winter as houseplants isn’t likely to give you a good harvest.
The low-light conditions indoors over winter gives lanky, weak branches—and that can affect your harvest once you move the fig outdoors for summer.
Why Fig Trees Wake up Early
When potted dormant fig trees leaf out early, it’s usually because the storage area is too warm.
Basements in modern, centrally heated homes usually are not cold enough to keep a fig tree dormant all winter.
It really depends on your house, though:
A friend had a century-old farmhouse with an uninsulated, unheated, earth-floored basement…fantastic for dormant figs. That’s the kind of space that keeps fig trees dormant.
My garage is unheated and is a perfect spot for overwintering dormant figs.
Some modern homes have a good root cellar—and the desirable temperatures for root cellaring also work well for keeping fig trees dormant.
A Note on Dormancy
There are a few things that work together to induce and keep a fig tree in a dormant state:
Heat
Day length
Soil moisture
But I’ve found that the single most important thing to focus on to keep your fig tree from leafing out early is temperature.
Yes, longer days plays a role in figs waking up. Having said that, when I store dormant potted fig trees in my garage—which has windows—they don’t wake up too early. That’s because it stays consistently cool.
What to Do if Fig Trees Start Growing Early
What do you do if your fig tree is awake early?
Here in USDA Zone 5, if figs wake up mid- to late-winter, it’s just too cold to put them outside to coax them back into dormancy.
The tender growth they’ve made inside is quickly zapped by the cold.
So let the fig tree grow indoors—but give it the most light possible.
Here’s a guide about what to do with fig trees in the spring.
Let’s dig into a couple of examples of potted figs sprouting so that you can think about what you could do if your figs leaf out early.
Get Your Fig Trees Through Winter
And eat fresh homegrown figs!
It’s dark, but it’s also too warm…so the fig trees have started to leaf out early!
EXAMPLE 1: Figs Leafing Out Early
Here’s an example of a late-winter note that I received about potted figs sprouting early. Holly wrote:
I brought my six fig trees inside and put them in my crawl space. They are in large containers with reservoirs in the bottom.
Anyway, it is dark but too warm, and they are spouting small albino-pale leaves.
Now I don’t know what to do? Leave them? Move them to my cooler sunroom with light? Help!!!
Here is my response:
Sorry to hear about your fig dilemma! Yes, it looks as if it is too warm, so they’ve come out of dormancy early. It's hard to get trees back into dormancy. If you put them in a cool sunroom with bright light that would be the best choice—as long as they don’t freeze.
The Challenge
Even though it’s completely dark, it’s too warm in Holly’s crawlspace.
If fig trees come out of dormancy early, give them light—otherwise the growth is lanky like this.
So the fig trees started to grow.
What to Do
Find a bright indoor space to grow the fig trees until they can go outdoors for the summer. The brighter the better—so they have compact growth. But they mustn’t freeze now that they are growing.
(A dormant fig tree can freeze. Find out how cold fig trees can get.)
Holly has a sunroom, and that’s the best option in this case. In fact, it’s a very good option, because it bright and cool.
Other places you can put fig trees that come out of dormancy early:
In front of a bright south-facing window
Under artificial lights (less than ideal…but if it’s all you can do, it’s better than nothing)
Avoid Early Sprouting Next Year
Holly told me next year she might build an insulated space within her garage so that her figs don’t leaf out early. This insulated storage space is a really practical approach for garages that get too cold for potted fig trees to survive.
(Even garages that are warm enough for dormant figs can get too cold when the large doors are opened in winter.)
To make this sort of insulated storage space, build a lean-to or closet inside the garage, against the outside wall of the house. This gives a protected area where the temperature does not fluctuate as much when the garage door is open.
EXAMPLE 2: Figs Leafing Out Early
Here’s another example of a late-winter enquiry I received about potted figs coming out of dormancy early:
“My fig trees are growing, what should I do?”
“My fig trees are growing, what should I do?” David’s fig trees awake early…
That was the start of a late-March phone chat with my neighbour David. A fellow fig enthusiast, David grows his figs in pots on his patio over the summer. He leaves them out in the fall until they’re dormant.
The potted fig trees spend the winter in his garage.
The garage is heated because David works out there on his cars over the winter. And it has lots of big windows. The combination of light and temperature were enough to coax the fig trees out of dormancy earlier than David wanted.
The Challenge
It’s still too cold outside to put the potted fig trees outside in bright light. There will be more freezes, and that would kill the tender new growth.
But the light in the garage isn’t bright enough for good compact growth.
What to Do
There’s no putting these impatient fig trees back into dormancy.
And it would be a terrible shame to trim them back and lose the breba fruit.
Lots of Lights
I suggested to David that he put the fig trees in the brightest spot in the garage that he can until it’s a bit warmer. Then he can move the figs out on warmer days, so they’re in brighter light. (Starting in a sheltered, shaded spot so they are not scalded by the bright sun or get wind burn)
The other idea I mentioned to David is a simple, temporary greenhouse built against his garage. Like a temporary greenhouse just for his figs in this shoulder season.
Figs awake early… David’s potted fig trees are sprouting in his garage, and making lanky growth.
Avoid Figs Waking Up Early Next Year
Next year, there are a few things David can try so that he doesn’t have the problem of fig trees waking up early.
Keep the garage cooler
Or, instead of making the whole garage cooler and darker, wall off a corner—like a mini cold cupboard—for his figs
Overwinter the figs outdoors (plant in the ground and tip over and mulch for winter; or, use the trench method for potted figs overwintered outdoors)
Here are more ideas for overwintering figs in cold climates.
Important Tip for Figs Trees That Leaf Out Early
Pin this post!
There’s one more thing to remember—and this is important.
When it's time to move the fig plants outdoors in the spring, put them in a shaded location to start with.
When fig plants have leafed out early indoors, in dim light, and you put them outdoors in bright sunlight, there is a chance of sun scald.
I’ve fried my fig plants many times when I’ve moved them into full sun too quickly.
Put the fig trees somewhere shaded for a few days before moving them to a sunny location.
Find out what to do with your fig tree in the spring.
FAQ – Figs Waking up Early
Why does my fig wake up early?
The most common reason is that it’s too warm.
So should I grow my fig indoors now that it’s awake?
It’s not ideal to grow your fig as a houseplant. You’ll get lanky, weak growth. But if it’s too cold outside, grow it indoors—and then give it conditions to keep it dormant all winter next year.
Do fig trees need light to wake up?
Nope! As Holly’s predicament, in Example 1 shows. Light is involved in dormancy…but heat is the thing to pay the most attention to when you want to keep your fig tree dormant.
Do figs lose their leaves over the winter?
In cold climates fig trees drop their leaves and go dormant for the winter. This is great for cold-climate gardeners because it gives us lots of ways to safely store fig trees in a protected space. (In tropical climates they can grow all year long…not a situation that I have here in my USDA Zone 5!)
How do I get my fig to go dormant?
Shorter days and cold temperatures cause your fig to go dormant. Leave your potted fig outdoors through the first fall frosts to help it go dormant. If you take your fig indoors before it’s dormant, it might not go dormant.
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