Lizza...
How many gallons of soil in the containers? How old/large are the trees, and, what variety? How low will the night temps. get? You are essentially asking how to over-winter your figs that are growing in containers, exposed to the elements, and some low, below freezing temps. Have you successfully over-wintered your trees in this location in the past?

We can help you with some suggestions, but I think you need to give us some more information about your growing conditions, etc. I would do a search on this Forum for containerized figs, and see if some of your questions will be answered in older postings. Containerized figs can be tricky in low temp. areas...but not impossible.

Hope this might help.

BronxFigs/Frank

Thanks for getting back to me. Neither of them have overwintered outside. One is a Peter's Honey dwarf fig that I got last spring so it's never overwintered. It did get two rounds of fruit (just a few) which I didn't expect for such a young plant. I left that one inside so the figs would ripen--they have and were decent. I'm waiting for it to warm up enough to reintroduce it outdoors. The other I got late last fall and had it inside for most of the winter. I put it outside in the early spring. Because my balcony is so sheltered my first killing frost didn't happen until around 12/25 which was several months after the ground level. It's now lost all it's leaves. I don't know what it is aside from a dwarf fig that I bought at a local nursery. It has not had fruit but got quite big last summer. It is in a 20" planter that holds 36 quarts of soil. The Peter's Honey is in a 12 inch planter. As for weather the lowest it's gotten has been 28 degrees and that was only for 2-3 nights. Right now the Weather.com temp is 33 for my area but it's 43 on my balcony with no sun. I'm on the 15th floor of a high rise and have yet to turn my heat on. I can put them both right by the balcony door which I actually leave open a few inches because it's over 70 degrees in my condo even sans heat. There they'd get less sun and would probably not get below 35 degrees.

Lizza,
It sounds like the one tree has been sitting inside for most of the fall/winter? If that is true, you are going to have to be careful putting it outside at this point. Normally they are left outside in the fall until they naturally lose their leaves and go dormant over a period of weeks. This prevents tissue damange. If you go straight from 70 degrees indoor to 30 or 40 degrees outside, you may have a problem. If you decide to do it, if possible wait until the weather will be relatively warm (50s) for a week or so when you put it out so it will have a chance to go dormant. If you don't want to risk it, then you can just leave indoors in a sunny location until spring.

For the other one, I'd say you are probably OK leaving it on the balcony, but there are really two concerns:

1. Not cold enough: If the temperatures are not cold enough, or if it gets warm and stays warm, then your trees will try to put out leaves. These will be killed the next time the temperature drops. Each time this happens it weakens the tree, and reduces stored energy and next years crop, even if it doesn't kill the tree. It should be fairly easy to tell if this is happening by looking to see if the buds on your trees are trying to open and send out leaves and/or fruit. For this concern, sun exposure is a bad thing, because it warms them further, so I would try to keep them shaded. But it's not the sunlight that's the problem directly, rather it's the heat injected by the sun.

2. Too cold: If you're in Arlington in a fairly urban area, you probably are zone 7, but possibly with the heat island effect you're closer to 8. So that should be OK for figs. However, the fact that the trees are in a pot could be a problem. You don't want the roots to freeze. In your 20 inch pot, it's got 9 gallons of soil, so I don't think it will freeze solid in your climate. But the outer inch or two might freeze, which will kill some roots. This probably wouldn't kill the tree but could weaken it a bit. If you are expecting a hard freeze (teens or low twenties), you could wrap it up in a blanket, or put a cardboard box over it. This will help a bit. If you put a cardboard box over it, with a lightbulb inside, this should protect it enough during a hard overnight freeze. But with how this winter is going, it may be that none of that is necessary.

Good luck
Rob

My two cents...

For us cold-north fig-people, wintering young potted
figs up in the air (e.g. a balcony), is a sure death sentence.

Thanks Rob. I will move it to the most shaded part of my balcony. I also can wrap it with some old school (not LED) Christmas lights to keep it warm if it gets cold. I'm technically in zone 7a but have long thought my balcony is closer to 7b or even 8. I was most concerned with the tree trying to put out leaves only to lose them to a cold snap and will try your suggestions. We're supposed to get into the 50's all next week (not this weekend--where we're expecting a wintery mix) so adding the 10 degrees I get on my balcony that's in the 60s and possibly 70s. I will keep the Peter's Honey indoors until later in the season. Thanks again!