I have grown a potted fig successfully for about six years, now. I root prune it every other winter (image attached) and want to keep it in the same container. I have never pruned the branches. Perhaps that has been my mistake. My problem now is that it has been putting out less and less new, green growth every year, resulting in a smaller and smaller main crop every year. The new leaves are also much smaller, whereas two years ago they were tropically proportioned. I feed it fish fertilizer. If I prune the fig hard (after root pruning in late winter), cutting into old wood, is that likely to rejuvenate my tree? I am afraid of killing it. Or must I face facts and give it a bigger pot? Two years ago it produced over 120 figs; this year and last I got about 30. The image on the left was taken yesterday, where the fig is sheltering from a storm we had in NYC, and one in the middle was taken two years ago.
While you can prune a fig back to the soil line and have it resprout, I suspect the progressive decline of yours might be a nutrient issue; the fish fertilizer is relatively low in P and K (especially), you might try something stronger and more balanced....
Hm. Thank you. I should have mentioned that two years ago I was the blue crystals to feed it - I am a recovering Miracle Gro addict :-) and have since seen the environmental light. The rest of my small garden is thriving on the new regime but I do realize that the different in nutrient values is stark.
There you have it, hope it makes a difference for you next season. If it's any consolation, there isn't really any environmental difference (at the level of small scale container culture) between fertilizer crystals and the bottle of Alaskan salmon plant scrapings; both have embedded impacts, and both depend on petrochemicals in their production, so at the level of the home container gardener (In which, as you know, supplemental fertilizing is essential), it's basically a non-issue in a broader environmental sense. You can, with clear conscience keep a secret bag of the blue stashed away somewhere, to be brought out after dark....after all, while there isn't an environmental issue (in this context) per se, there nevertheless remains an air of the pariah around admitting to using it, sometimes, likely based on the bad rep. gained by chemical fertilizers sometimes (over) used at the agricultural level.
