Cheap fig trees

lolly5648

Has anyone seen any offers for fig trees? My husband, for reasons of his own, decided to prune my fig and basically pollarded it - looks just like the trees the councils butcher in the streets! It might recover in a couple of year's time but I need a new one just in case it doesn't.

The ones in the local garden centre seem very expensive and although cheaper online, postage pushes up the price.

freezspirit

There's a couple on ebay price range 5.00 - £20.00.

Might be worth checking your local veg store thats where I got my small fig tree, couple of years ago I paid atmost £4 its less than 2 foot high but as provided 3-5 fruit per year which makes mum happy. Can't stand figs myself.

wiltslass

I saw some in Morrisons last week, I think they were about £10. Not sure about the variety. They seemed a reasonable size for the money.

Blackjack_Davy

The cheapest way would be to take some cutting from your tree in the autumn, take some decent shoot about the thickness of a pencil, not too green about 12-18 inches long, plant them in a slit trench to about half their depth, take a few more than you need to allow for losses and they should have rooted and grown a bit by the following autumn. When they're dormant carefully lift them and plant them in their permanent position.

Figs grow on their own roots so no need to worry about grafted plants etc.

Alternatively if there are a few suckers coming up around the base (a fig tree I know has loads of them) carefully dig some of them out and they'll have roots on them already. It's getting a bit late now but if you're careful you should be able to move them if you get a good rootball.

I wouldn't worry about it not growing again though I've cut some back really hard and they had no trouble throwing out plenty of new shoots from the top of the stumps.

Farway

Lidl & Wilkinson's sometimes have them, my one is Lidl, variety unknown, now 3 years old in pot & has a good promising crop this year

During the spring / summer prune 2011 I stuck a pruning in the open ground, literally, just pushed it in, and it rooted and is now in pot

So, cuttings or buying, either way it will be a couple of years for a harvest unless you buy a large plant

lolly5648

Blackjack_Davy wrote: »

The cheapest way would be to take some cutting from your tree in the autumn, take some decent shoot about the thickness of a pencil, not too green about 12-18 inches long, plant them in a slit trench to about half their depth, take a few more than you need to allow for losses and they should have rooted and grown a bit by the following autumn. When they're dormant carefully lift them and plant them in their permanent position.

Figs grow on their own roots so no need to worry about grafted plants etc.

Alternatively if there are a few suckers coming up around the base (a fig tree I know has loads of them) carefully dig some of them out and they'll have roots on them already. It's getting a bit late now but if you're careful you should be able to move them if you get a good rootball.

I wouldn't worry about it not growing again though I've cut some back really hard and they had no trouble throwing out plenty of new shoots from the top of the stumps.

Thanks for the reassurance about new shoots - my fig tree is about 6 years old and we have been getting a reasonable crop (I love fresh figs) and I just left it to do its thing. I have now hidden the pruners so my husband will never touch any of the plants again! I didn't realise it was so easy to take cuttings - I will definitely do so when we get new shoots.

ladylouise62

Wilkinsons are half-pricing a lot of their stuff and I got a Fig for £2.80 or so.