The leaves fall off because of rust. The air is just too humid in Houston. With all the rain, the problem is even more so this year. There is milky sap on the stem end when you pick the fruit because the fruit is not fully ripe yet. If you bought the trees at a nursery in Houston, there is not telling what you have. I say this with lots of experience. The more popular varieties around the Houston area are Celeste, Kadota, Alma, and Brown Turkey. You already said they do not turn brown, so we can eliminate BT. If your fruit stays yellow, then I would tend to agree with everyone else and say Kadota (or one of its variants). If your tree has tinges of golden brown, it is probably Alma. The fruit on your tree does not appear to be the same size/shape as the Celeste variant that seems to be everywhere in Houston. If you live close to the Clear Lake area, I can direct you to where a Celeste, an Alma, and a Brown Turkey live and hang over a fence in public view. You could go to those locations to see what they look like and what stage of development they are in. ~james

Hi, Thanks for a friendly comments. jdreinstein - Previous 2 years it was not so difficult to bury my tree. I have bent all branches to the ground (before were fixed together), sprayed with anti-fungal spray, covered with kind of burlap, and again sprayed against moulds. And after that I put a lot of soil. I`ve made a kind of "grave" for my fig. But it worked !!! So, be honest my tree was not buried but covered with a soil. ottawan_z5a - really, last winter was very very hard even for our zone. Of course I agree temps we got last winter were for zone 5. Concerning figs - I hope we`ll eat more figs and not only breba. Regards Wojtek

Hi Landscapewitch, You've got that right--I love anoles and never get tired of watching them. It's been so long since I've seen an anole with a broken-off-tail that I can't even remember if I ever saw one with a tail growing back! The first time I tried to catch an anole, many many years ago now, I grabbed it by the tail. What a shock that was to end up with a wiggling tail in my hand! I still get the frissons when I think about that. :) I love our geckos, as well. There are large, glass windows across the peak of the roof across the front of our house and the geckos hang out on those windows in the warm weather. I stay up very late and the light draws the moths that they like to eat, so I have spent hours upon hours watching them. Last year, one of the geckos had a fork at the end of its tail. This year, I saw a gecko with the same fork at the end of its tail. I don't know if it's an anomaly, or if it's on the same gecko. noss

Without seeing it, all I can say is a single root out of a hundred attached to the base of the tree can prevail when the rest of the tree is dead. In consideration of the fact you can always remove the dead parts of the trunk at a later date, but you cannot restore the living parts you removed because you might have been in a hurry. I suggest you put yourself on tree time (everything happens slowly for trees [except lightning strikes]) and wait to see what else develops. Be sure you do not over-water. Best strategy would be to use a 'tell' to tell you when it's time to water. Don't fertilize until you see new growth ....... and even then it might be wise to look at the bigger picture of watering habits, soil choice, light levels, temps, and try to figure out the best nutritional supplementation for you going forward. There's just not enough info to help any more than that. Something about Using a Tell Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support good root health, which is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to a build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Al