Sunday 4 September 2011

trimming the triffid fig

Every winter I give the fig tree a good hard prune to keep it a good, productive size.  It's an old tree so it grows like crazy.  But this year, I decided it was time for something more drastic.
http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden11/figprune1.JPG
The thick branch on the left of the photo hangs so far over the lawn that the grass in that corner is in deep shade all summer long and dies.  I bought some shade-tolerant grass seed for that corner and it's going ok but it was time for some extreme pruning.
http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden11/figprune2.JPG
After trimming off the smaller branches I got some help from my husband to cut off a good chunk of the thick branch.  It's so big and heavy I don't think I can put it in the council bin, I'll probably chop it up for firewood.  So now the tree is looking a bit more trim.
http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden11/figprune3.JPG
I'm not worried about fruit, if anything it's more productive if you keep the size under control.  And this way we've claimed back more of the lawn for human use this summer!

2 comments:

Phoebe said...

WOW! Go Girl! What kind of fig is it? I LOVE figs!!

Alexa said...

It's a black turkey fig. Not the sweetest fig but HUGE fruit. Click on the label 'fig' on the right side of the blog to see posts about the fig tree.