How To Easily Propagate Fig Trees
Now that we are getting closer to completing our old house project, we’re starting to think more about landscaping, gardening and planting fruit trees. Like everything else, the cost of fruit trees has gone up, so we have to be mindful of this when choosing what we will plant. Propagating plants and trees is a great way to save money and plant more trees without having to buy them.
We love figs, and they grow well in our area. While exploring our property after purchasing it, we discovered a fig tree growing on the edge of the woods near a clearing in front of our house. It was completely surrounded by brush, causing it to grow long and spindly as it reached for the sun. My husband decided to clear the area around the tree and prune it back while it’s dormant, in hopes of encouraging fuller and straighter growth this spring. Fig trees are known to be very easy to propagate, so we saw this as a perfect opportunity to turn our single fig tree into several.
Pruning and preparing cuttings
The most common method of propagating fig trees is by taking cuttings, burying them in soil and allowing them to root. There are various ways to do this, but we chose to pot them.
We began by digging some “dirt” from our woods to use as potting soil. We have a loose sandy loam here that is blackened with composted leaves. It drains well and is perfect for propagating.
Our fig tree had a single long branch, so we pruned it back, trimmed away some of the smaller limbs and cut it into a few sections.
We scored the bottoms of the cuttings to create more surface area for root growth, and then we “planted” them in pots where we will keep them lightly watered.
If all goes well, we should have roots in a couple of weeks. Depending on growth, we will be able to plant our little trees in the spring or early fall.
No fig tree? No worries!
Do you know someone who has a fig tree? If not, explore your neighborhood or community and see if you can spot one. I have often seen figs planted in neighborhood yards. Especially at older homes. Most likely, anyone who is trimming their fig tree would be willing to share their cuttings with you. You could also offer to prune their tree for them and keep the cuttings as a thank you. If you do this, you can gift them with a new potted fig in the spring!
Pin this post for later:
How wonderful that I found this. I planted a couple of fig trees last spring and got a few figs from them in the fall. They were super delicious, and I want to grow more trees. I will definitely give your propagation method a try this coming fall. Mine are a bit small still, but have grown a lot since when I first planted them.
Exciting! Good deal..I’m glad you found it helpful. Keep me posted. 🙂
We had a small orchard when I was growing up and we had a coupe fig trees. This was really fun to read and made me miss that little orchard!
Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed reading it. Perhaps you can plant a fig or two at your home now. We’ve always enjoyed them. I can still see my kids hanging like monkeys from the fig tree at their grandparent’s house, snacking away! Many moons ago..