A neighbor has a large, established fig tree. It already has little baby figs on it. I never even saw flowers on their tree, and I've watched it religiously.

Mine, which is new to me this year (but not a seedling--it came in a five gallon pot, and had clearly been pruned to keep it small), is just now starting to leaf out. I don't necessarily expect figs this year, but here are my questions:

When do fig trees bloom? What do the blooms look like, and how did I miss them on my neighbor's tree? Is it too late to hope against hope that mine will produce even one or two little figs this year (it started to leaf out signficantly later than the neighbor's)?

My dad said that if I have even one fresh fig for him, he will fly out here from Colorado to visit and eat fig(s). I would love to take him up on it this year, as I do not think he was expecting to have to do it just yet! LOL

Okay, I just answered my own question, and wow!

So I didn't see any flowers, because the fig *is* the flower. Apparently, the fleshy outer rim of the fig encases tiny immature flowers, and in the case of domestic figs, these never mature into seeds.

Which makes me wonder, how do they propagate figs? But, of course, in a minute I'll just go "Use the Web" and find out for myself.

Right, figs don't have flowers. I've always assumed that figs could be propagated from the seeds within the fruit. But how they are bred I don't know.

Aha! Found the answer to that one, too. The domestic fig is not usually pollinated--it produces fruit without pollination. Propagation takes place by cuttings.

Wild figs, where they are indigenous, are usually pollinated by a tiny wasp that is native to that area. Each species of fig has its own wasp that specializes on that particular species, so they are completely interdependent. Where the fig disappears, the wasp disappears; where the wasp disappears, the fig gradually disappears.

Each species of wasp has a special "ovipositor" it uses to deposit eggs inside the fig, and at the same time it carries pollen from one fig to another.

More than you ever wanted to know about fig sex. :^O

It takes a few years for a fig to fruit...

I met a man with these gorgeous figs at his fruit stand and got talking with him about them.... his came from Italy with his grand parents, cuttings, hidden in the seams of garments way back at the turn of the century 100 years or so ago).... his trees were the offspring of those trees... he told me how to propagate figs, and I followed his directions, and my current fig tree is from a baby I started.....

When the trees are dormant in the winter (like in January in California), take 12 inch long cuttings of the summer's growth (it should be about index finger thick). Take a number of cuttings, tie them together with some twine and bury them in the ground for a month (place them upside down, or horizontal in the ground. In a month, dig them up and seperate the cuttings, and stick each one in the ground, right side up, where you want them to grow (or in a pot). Keep them moist but not wet. They should leaf out with warm weather....

I did this a number of years ago, and I think I had 8 little fig seedlings start this way (out of 12). I gave a few to a neighbor, and planted the others in my yard. The following year we were moving, so as soon as I knew we wanted to move (january fortunately), I dug up one of those baby figs and potted it up in a large 5 gallon container... and once we moved in the summer, that tree came along. The following winter I planted it in our current yard.

It's now 4 years later, that tree is 10 feet tall, and has about 50 figs on it, nice, plump, swellings....

The first 2 years here it did nothing really as far as fruit, but last summer there were lots.

I get 2 "crops" in the summer. The first ones to ripen are the ones that are currently forming.... then come October I get a few more....