Thanks for the informative post mountainman. I knew that some open eye figs needed to be pollinated and other do not. I did not know that pollinating them could cause the pulp to change color. As for the poetry, I have written lots of poetry some better and some worse than the one above. Though I have never written a poem about figs before today. I just wanted express my love for figs and my unknown Keepers. I would not trade them for any other named fig. For now they are but a sweet mystery to be savored again and again. Till the Fall season over takes them and they sleep as though dead till Spring returns them to me once again. Enough now of poetry as this is not a poetry forum.lol

Thank you....that's it, FULL MOON!!! Well, I'll be looking for a source to get one for next winter. Not the right time to get it now. I only have THREE, could always use a little more beautiful shade, and a good view from every window of the house.

Wetsuitor: The only ones I dug up this year were 4 washies and a sago palm, each of which would take considerable protection here including heat. I will be leaving those in when they get 2 big to handle, but the washies seem to take root distubance very well and overwinter well indoors. There is of course some set back and it is slow to get growing in the spring, however I'm not ready to get into an elaborate heating system yet. I'm trying to work out my kinks this year on a trachy. Plus my wife would kill me if I had Jim's setup! I live in maybe the coldest winter 6a in America. This will be my 3rd winter here, the lowest low each of the past 2 years is -2, and -8F, HOWEVER, it is the norm to go 3 weeks at a time never getting above freezing. Last December and January, we had 9 days that got above freezing during the day, and most of those were in the 33-38F range for highs. We also had 2 3-weeks seesions of consecutive below freezing weather. The other problem is that I generally don't see grass from Dec.1 to mid-March, it never gets warm enough to ever melt the snow. Last year I lost 2 decent sized trachies and a sabal palmetto, and my minors and needle that survived received considerable damage, the minors burned 98%, the only things left were the emerging spears. Needle had spear pull with surving pups. That was with frost cloth wrapped unheated leaf cages, which provided 0-30% damage and no losses the year before.

ROFL! No Cougar alert needed here, Dan! I haven't been out hunting for MANY years! Love my life just like it is! "compacted and underwatered" I think you might be surprised by what the folks on FC are DELIGHTED to get! My sympathies about your roots, Aloha! If your tree was right on the other side of my fence, I'd be hacking them out left and right like I do the neighbors' cottonwood roots! For your hosta, and whatever else you're planing to put in there, whenever you have time start to soften up the soil and add as much organic matter as you can. Hosta do much better with a lot of organic matter, and it'll have time to work its way in better if you start adding it now. And remember, The Tree is going to be sucking up a lot of water, and Hosta like to be wet too, so you're going to need to stay on top of the watering situation when you start planting there. (I may be giving away some small hosta starts at next year's Spring Swap!) If it's mostly shade, consider some of the hardy ferns too! They can be really cool! They like a good "spongy" soil too--and moisture. And don't worry about it if you need to cut out an occasional root here and there to make something work! Think about how many you can see--and then consider how many there are that you can't see! I've been hacking out cottonwood roots for almost six years now---and, oh how I wish I could do some damage to those trees! Skybird