Wednesday 1 August 2018

Fig tree collection has doubled - now a certified "figaholic"

The new bare root trees arrived 30th June.






After transplanting, I've reached 55 large pots (5 gal/20 liter) and 17 black plastic bags of duplicates plus  3 varieties of cutting I'm trying to root, making at least 30 different varieties altogether. I ran out of space long ago.

Yellow labels are known varieties from Stark Ayres in Cape Town, brown labels are sourced in PE, Grahamstown and Kenton and pretty much "unknown".

Blue labels in green pots are the new bare root trees purchased from Gerhard at Giving Trees in Vereeniging (another "figaholic" but one who actually owns and runs a commercial nursery so it's a sort of job requirement), and are correctly identified.





As if that wasn't enough, the most recent bare rooted batch arrived from Gerhard on 30 July, making an extra 3 pots, 2 black bags and umpteen extra cuttings:


 A duplicate Cape Black and Ficazzana Black (Smyrna type) into bags:


Cape Black, Ficazzana Black and Malta Black (latter two Smyrna types) in pots but before labelling and  cutting back:


Collection at present consists of:

Common figs: Adam, Alma, Blackjack, Black Mission, Cape Black, Cape Brown, Cape White, Col de Dame Grise, Col de Dame Noire, Dalmatie, Deanna, Dauphine, Kadota, Noire de Barbentane, Noire de Caromb, Parisian, Pastiliere, Tangiers (Zidi?), Ronde de Bordeaux, Roxo de Valinhos, Tena, Tiger, White Genoa, Violette de Bordeaux

Cuttings:Sucre Verte (cuttings), Sultane (cuttings), Tangiers (both a tree from Starke Ayres and cuttings from Gerhard - tree may be a Zidi)

Smyrna: Black Malta, Ficazzana Black, Smyrna/Calimyrna, Caprifig Roeding 3 and a seedling fig from my garden

Unknown: Assorted local Avignon and Toulouse (which may or may not be Dauphine and Ronde de Bordeaux respectively) and several claiming to be Cape Brown, Kadota and Adam but most certainly aren't, plus "Black" and "Violet" figs. Also some cuttings from friends with so far unidentified trees.

Gerhard's web site has a good description of many of these fig varieties.

I'm happy to trade cuttings or duplicates when these trees are larger. Please leave a comment.

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