Okay, first you need some fig cuttings. Ideally, you get them in the morning from a willing donor (or you wander the neighborhood looking for damaged limbs, branches sticking out in the street or over the path et al . . . this is not recommended. Best to stick a note in the mailbox asking is it Ok for you to nip a few branch ends? Offer to give them a couple of the 'children' you produce (if you are lucky, you'll be able to give them a different variety should you do this with several trees. Do keep track of what they are if that is what you want to do.) You might also offer other plants, seeds, perennial divisions, firstborn male children, whatever you have spare. Now you have some legal branch ends (I find they work best.) Keep them in a plastic bag with a wet towel until you get home. Now, at home, put a kettle on to boil, and cop a few bottles from the recycle bin. Keeping track of the alcoholics in your neighborhood will make this easier if you don't generate enough Miller High Life containers on your own. Rinse them. When the water boils let it sit until it is not quite so hot and GENTLY pour about two inches in each bottle. The idea is not to let any air bubbles form, no shaking, just flat flat water. Sit the bottles off to cool further, and get your cutters. Wash them with alcohol or a ten to one dilute bleach solution (Ten parts WATER to one part BLEACH). Do not let your cutters get contaminated again. Be a real nit about this. It makes a difference. Put a bowl of water in the sink. You could use some of the boiled water but I do not know if it will make a difference. Now for your rooting hormone. You can use the gooey gel sort or the dust or the liquid : whatever you do put a little in a container and use that. You do not want to contaminate your hormone by dunking a cutting in it. Just put some on a saucer and use it up. Grab your first cutting. Hold the cut end under water in the bowl, and with your nippers, cut diagonally BELOW a bud. I like to have branch ends as there is always a nice bud at the tip, but try for about three below that one. Now you have a nice diagonal cut. Dip it in the rooting hormone, then set it aside. Repeat. Keep different figs apart, the Brunswick over here, the Alma over there, and give some of the Panachee, Italian Honey, and Petite Negri to me (I don't have those.) When you have done this to all of your figs, put them into the bottles (GENTLY! NO BUBBLES!) Stick the bottles on a windowsill and wait . . . . I like to dump the water out every couple of days and put more boiled and cooled water in. The little dots and bumps on the sticks will start to poke out a bit, like adolescent zits. Then they will get white. Then they will come out and be roots. ( Replace the fig cutting bottle and jump up and down at this point.) Let the roots get about an inch long, then VERY GENTLY put them in a container (a DEEP container you can cut off of them later, or gently pull them out of). Push soil about the fragile roots and water, with the boiled cooled water if you like (again, I don't know if it helps but hey it is cheap.) Some sticks will die but I have had pretty good luck. The baby fig trees are popular with kids who enjoy checking out their growth daily. I did this this summer, twice (I have my second batch sprouting white roots now.) So that is it. It is not that hard, if you follow the rules; keep the nippers clean, boil the water and be gentle with it so you get no air, and treat the little treelets with tender care. Good luck.

If the plant is sparse, it's probably not healthy. It's not the plant's nature to be robust and display sparse foliage at the same time. Maximize branch ramification by pruning all branches with 4 or more leaves back to 2 leaves. Get the plant into full sun. Make sure your soil drains freely so you can water profusely every time you water and feed weekly at 1/2 strength through Sep. I would suggest any fertilizer with a 3:1:2 ratio, like 24-8-16, 12-4-8, or 9-3-6. I can tell you now though, that unless you keep branch length under control and the canopy open so light can penetrate, you'll have lots of trouble maintaining much in the way of interior growth. Al

Mariann - Oh you are so welcome, I love sharing my experiences and there is so little info on this on the interent, with any form of detail. As far as the place I kept them, due to the time frame with Early Spring, I put the cuttings indoors. Really wasn't sure if they should be warm or cold, but I figured if I'm trying to root them from dormancy, they need to be coming out of dormancy. My assumption was correct on these particular items. I can't say on other woody cuttings, but I prefer the quicker method (in warmth) than the unknown "stick them in the ground" method. They ended up starting green growth, before the outdoor items did. I've actually heard that, depending on the HW cuttings, keeping them warm helps the root growth, so they were in my upstairs bathroom at about 70 degrees constant. Now I'm testing out the softwood cuttings...oh it's so much different! But the bagging method works beautifully with that as well. I have 3 English Laurel cuttings in baggie method and 3 English Laurel cuttings in perlite method. The baggie method has roots EVERYWHERE! And I do mean EVERYWHERE!!! They are growing roots over the entire stem! 3 out of 3 are growing roots. The perlite/bottle method is just starting to get root buds, but isn't showing alot of promise. 2 of the cuttings have died off, so I'm awaiting the growth of roots on one of the 3 cuttings. I'm kind of getting a feel from the type of plant (that I can't explain it) as to which type of rooting method to use for which type of plant. Some seem to do beautifully in the perlite and bottle method and others do better in the baggie method. I suppose it's just keeping notes on each type of plant. Wanted to point out on the propagation boxes above, the only thing lacking is a plugged terra cotta pot to dispense moisture. I've included a link below for one on GW. While they are beautiful, they need the moisture. Check out Easy Propagation Chamber on GW and you'll see what I mean. This is so fun....Thanks so much for the fun.... Toni Here is a link that might be useful: Easy propagation chamber

1) By volume 2) An entire book could be written about how to water. The best way to water is: Add enough water to ensure the entire soil mass is moist/damp. Wait a few minutes, around 10, and water again so at least 15-20% of the total volume of water applied exits the pot. The pot should not rest in the effluent because this provides a pathway for the salts you flushed from the soil to make their way back into the pot. With a pathway back into the pot, the level of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil solution quickly reaches a state of isotonicity (balance) with the level of dissolved solids in the effluent, negating your efforts to flush the soil. I set my pots up on pieces of plastic channel so they are well above any effluent that drains into the saucer. The water in the collection saucer usually evaporates within a day or two, but how quickly that occurs depends on factors like RH, air movement, and temps. 3) It depends on the plant. Some plants get divided & repotted, but for most plants I like to repot in an appropriate month (usually June) by bare-rooting, root pruning, and transplanting into an appropriate soil. For my own purposes, I consider an appropriate soil to be one I can water to beyond saturation - so I'm flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids (mineral salts) each time I water, w/o my having to worry about root rot or depressed root function over long periods (days) because the soil tends to remain soggy interminably. 4) The worse your soil is, the more advantage pots made of unglazed clay or other gas permeable materials provide. Soils like these already have excellent gas exchange due to meritable air porosity, so the advantage in using gas permeable pots is reduced, but not absent. 5) The 1:1:1 ratio should serve you well indoors/Boston. Because my focus is primarily on bonsai, I grow a lot of plants in small soil volumes. I generally water on a 4 -5 day rotation, but I have a half dozen plants I water lightly after 3 days, then again on the 4th or 5th day. Last week, RH was very high, and the heating system didn't run much, so the interval was stretched to 6 days - same this week, it appears. The fast draining soils are a big help to me in that they allow me to water on a schedule instead of on a plant by plant basis. I enjoy nurturing and doing creative things with plants, but the thought of having to keep track of a watering program on a plant by plant basis isn't appealing to me. I noticed that you're 'following'. I appreciate that - thank you. Al