I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as well. Our elevation is about 5500 ft. I live in the valley close to the Rio Grande river. It gets colder here than most places in the city during the winter. I had two five foot fig trees freeze to the ground as well. As I recall, we had several exceptionally cold days in December with temps into the single digits. Ironically, my trees are leafing from the ground level as well. So it sounds like we experienced similar conditions. I know of several folks in Albuquerque who had well-established fig trees die completely with no recovery whatsoever. It also depends on the variety of the tree.

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

Third vote (confidently) for leaf rust. The tree should come back beautifully next year. Also, I would agree, the suckers next to the tree should be removed. Are there two trunks on the tree? At first I thought there was a large branch coming off the main trunk in NE quadrant of the picture. On second glance, it looks like a second trunk that grows straight up and bends towards where the hose bib is. Are there any branches on that trunk? IF THIS WERE MY TREE (I capped that to avoid confusion and, consequently, being yelled at), I would be tempted to remove the second trunk (especially if there are no branches on it). Also, I would remove the lowest branch on the main trunk (the branch pointing off to the left of the picture). Otherwise I think you have a beautiful tree. ~james

Claire, I would suggest you post these questions in the house plant section as the fig forum is for edible figs. They are very good folks over there and I bet they can help you. Good luck.