Herman -- I suppose U have lots of friendly neighbours. It would probably take me 3 to 4(Hopefully less) years to have a bumper harvest with trees in the ground from next year onwards. Yup - this forum & yr inputs (& Many other regulars ) have guided my fig collection forays. I have stayed away from BT & Celeste, except for Vern's BT. Keeping honest is probably a challenge for some nurseries. Like the other day I was at this particular nursery where I have been a few times & there was this fig plant that had no name on. Well, suddenly this "no name" fig plant had a freshly name tag & its leave shape is no way near the variety it was suppose to be. My motivation to shop there for fig trees disappeared. Anyway thanks for yr valueable inputs. Paul

Sal --- Sorry for the delay in response to your question about what I do to deter critters on the figs. Well, I use Bird Repeller Ribbon tied to shepherds hooks. The ribbon works especially great for squirrels and good for birds. The ribbons can also be mounted on the outside branches of the trees, as high as possible. It is a holographic plastic strip that is so thin that is wiggles making noise with the slightest breeze. So, between the holographic reflections and the wiggling noises, the critters stay away. I like to use shepherds hooks because they are portable. I move them around the yard to where ever they are needed. They are also great for the veggie garden. Christine

There is a YouTube video that helps that exact situation I think the dropping one is getting too much water You should probably separate them though so you can care for them separately (don't be scared to cut them apart at the roots they'll be fine

I strongly disagree. A full repot is actually REQUIRED if your plant is to be given full opportunity to function as close as possible to its genetic potential. The effects of repotting are short lived, so even though a repotted plant can be expected to sulk for a week or two before it resumes a much higher growth rate and level of vitality than its potted up counterpart, by the end of summer the repotted plant will have far surpassed the plant potted up in growth, and it will be healthier - all else being equal. This is F benjamina in the process of being repotted. It's been growing in a nursery can for a few years, so needs an extreme root reduction and flattening of the root system over time to allow it to fit in a shallow pot. ^^^ You can see by the large pile of soil under the plant that a good deal of soil/perimeter roots have already been removed and the solid mat that was the bottom 1/3-1/2 of the root mass has been removed and discarded.^^^ After removing most of the soil, I'll remove the large roots that serve almost no purpose (other than plumbing and anchorage). Under this mass, as you'll be able to see from the next image, are some VERY thick roots that I'll remove with very little thought about the process. ^^^ End result. In 1 or 2 more repots, the large roots under the trunk will be 'gnawed' off with a special tool designed for that purpose. Eventually, all roots will be radiating horizontally from the widest point of the trunk flare. Please note: I'm not suggesting that everyone should adopt root pruning to this extreme as a habit. I don't - you shouldn't. It just serves as a good illustration of how much root work a healthy tree is able to tolerate. After performing several thousand repots, I've gained a sense of what a tree will handle. For tropicals, it's based on how well they over-wintered indoors and their current level of vitality and growth rate when I repot in June. For temperate deciduous trees, the determination re how much root mass can be removed is based on their condition in late fall as they approached dormancy. I can say though, that when I do repot, the volume of roots removed would always make someone uninitiated to the practice unnecessarily fear for the tree's well-being. Al