quinoah:Believe me:I am Selecting figs since when i bought this house in 1993,before the computer time,Yet the oldest fig that is growing in my Bavckyard now is a 6 years old Hardy Chicago. So he is the surviver that I did not discard to date. I can call it the all time favorite. However I do have other very young cultivars that seem to be better in flavor,but they are to young to declare that they do not have any fault. You see here in New Jersey,other factors,such as Resistance: to rain and souring,to frost,Short season to ripe fruits,total need of Sommer Heat,Deasese resistance,are just as important as productivity. So it takes many years to evaluate these young cultivars that i am growing now. But I can say for sure:The future looks brighter,than the present, with the new aquired figs,in Specially a couple of figs i got from DR Leon Deprest,in New Mexico,Gene In Washington DC,and George Michalev in North Jersey. Best Regards

Bass, Can I assume that when you say "moss" you mean peat (peat moss) and not New Zealand sphagnum moss (the expensive stuff, probably hard to find) or decorative "green moss" (not sphagnum)? Sorry to nitpick, but all the different names we use can confuse people! By the way, has anyone ever tried using sphagnum (the NZ stuff), maybe even 100% as a rooting medium (other than for air-layering)? It can be very easily made barely moist but not wet. It's also supposed to have anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. If nothing else it might make a nice but expensive substitute for paper in bag rooting experiments. If one is short on metal hangers (do they sell them much anymore?), bamboo stakes or fragments of them make good frameworks for plastic bags.

I'll chime in. At the very least I'd pot it up with 1/2 good Miracle Grow potting soil (not the one with the moisture-control crystals), and 1/2 perlite, since perlite's easy to find. That much perlite should solve your drainage issues. Yes, I usually mix 1/2 potting soil, 1/4 perlite, 1/4 Aquatic Plant Soil (in pond supply area). All found at local Home Depot. Wish I could find pumice here. Place your plant in part sun for several weeks or until it really gets going. The tender stem can sunburn in full sun. This year I'm going to try potting up some of mine with the addition of 'Clay Buster' (or Breaker, or something like that) -- which consists of gypsum and pine bark fines, and is used as a soil additive to loosen up clay soils. It's cheap and will make the potting soil go a lot further. Anyone tried that? Yup, I'd use a one-gallon plastic pot and then pot up around late July/August if you see roots thru the drainage holes.

I did figure it out. It's a chrysobalanus icaco red tip. I took a few cuttings that I'll bring back to Vermont with me. I'm sure they'll do fine if I treat them similarly to my ficus. They seem to be commonly used as a hedge and always seem bushy. I'm going to try to grow them more into a tree form if they'll let me. They can reach about 14 feet tall. Maybe they'll let me braid them? Maybe the trunks will fuse over time? Maybe they'll take on a tree form if I keep cutting off lower growth? who knows. Guess I'll try it and find out.