I live in Florida.
I have a full size Illinois ever-bearing mulberry (grows to 35 feet) and a brown turkey fig that I want to keep small since I don't have the room yet to plant them in the ground.
What size pot is ideal for them and will they survive well being constricted in size?
How can I manage them in containers appropriately without killing them?
How wide do Illinois mulberries grow to when planted in the ground? (someone said 100ft wide!)
Thank you.
Yes, you can keep them in a pot but it will involve pruning the top and (when both trees are completely dormant, every two or three years) pulling them out of their pots and pruning the roots.
I would put them into the largest pot possible (at least 10 - 15 gallons) and then maintain them to be happy and healthy in that size pot. Find pots that are nice and heavy or insulate the pots to keep the roots cooler. The fig is going to be easier than the Mulberry. That variety of Mulberry is supposed to stay smaller but a regular Mulberry would grow to 50 feet or more in every direction.
The good part is that both these trees can take a lot of pruning and still be healthy. In California, Mulberry trees are often pruned to within a couple feet of the trunk each winter. It makes for a weird looking tree but it seems to work. I have kept Black Mission figs as bonsai, maintaining them at about 2 - 3 feet or less.
Daisy
Fig and mulberry are in the same family, so are closely related. Mother Nature was in a good mood when she decided how much genetic vigor she wanted to endow these trees with, and to a large degree it's a plant's level of vigor that determines how well it's able to deal with adversity, like being grown in a pot. Like Daisy said, you can maintain these plants in a pot in good health for a VERY long time, but there are requirements. I'll reiterate that you'll need to understand how to prune and root prune in order to keep any tree in a pot happy for the long haul. Also, you can't expect to leave the trees to their own devices in in a pot for any length of time and then simply plant them out (in the landscape) w/o correcting the root issues that are certain to develop in a container when regular root maintenance isn't a regular part of ongoing care.
Appropriate pot size depends more on soil choice than any other factor. On the small side, the pot must be large enough to accommodate the root mass and enough soil so root congestion isn't a serious limitation. On the large side, if you use the right soil or set-up, there is no upper limit to pot size - you can grow a small cutting in a 55 gallon drum if you like. As your choice of soils becomes more and more water-retentive, pot size and the probability of 'over-potting' becomes more and more of an issue.
Al
Thank you everyone for helping me with this issue. It really helps a lot, especially when I have limited space in the yard. I have grounded the mulberry and kept the fig in the pot knowing that they do well in containers. I am happy to have this information for me to use as a reference. Thank you again!
Mal
