Italian Fig Cuttings

I started off putting these 6 cuttings in a vase of water for two weeks. I put a 1-gal size baggie over the vase to keep in the humidity and changed the water every few days to keep it clean. After two to three weeks they looked like this:

Root nodules were emerging:

I planted these cuttings in 32oz clear cups in a mixture of damp vermiculite and perlite and top soil. A second cup was inverted
over the plants to keep in the humidity. They were then placed in an 18gal tub and covered with it's lid. Probably humidity overkill!

The soil was too wet so I had mold problems. I started to lose the initial leaves as seen here.

So I started venting the cups every couple of days to try to stop the mold and used a 10% bleach solution to remove any visible mold. It seems to have helped.

After 2 more weeks roots were visible.

After 8 weeks roots were strong (12/14/07). No real leaf development yet but it is winter!

All six cuttings are strong and rooting vigorously:

I plan to pot these up in 1 gal containers in the next few days.

The Mother tree, fruit and leaf in Tuscany (Borgo San Lorenzo), Italy, 10/6/07. This was the last of the fruits on this tree and I enjoyed every one of them!

Created on 9/21/07
last updated on 12/16/07
by Sue Vanderveen