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Ben what a great video.  I am sorry that you lost some of your fig trees, but it looks promising that some are coming back.

Great documentation by everyone listing the various fig trees.

Good luck to all who had that crazy cold weather, hoping that your trees will rebound.

Ben, Thanks for taking the time to make such an informative video.   To me, it seems that a lot of the Italian figs, which may be originally from higher elevations, seemed to survive better than others.  I find Greek trees and variegated varieties to be the most sensitive to cold.   As well, slow growing varieties also seem to recover from our winters a little worse for the wear than vigorous growing cultivars.  What is remarkable to me are varieties that died in ground but survived in pots.   One would assume that roots would be more severely frozen above ground in a small container rather than being buried in dirt.

For any Southern fig grower who leaves their plants outside in pots and unprotected, would it be beneficial to huddle your pots close together each winter and then cover all the pots (and some of the stems) with a heavy layer of wood mulch?   I have done that with plants in my unheated shed, in NJ, to keep the temperature around the roots more consistent, to allow retention of some heat from the floor underneath, and to retain moisture.   I have access to free wood mulch at my recycling center and I load up each summer so I have mulch for my trees and media for my soil mix. 

 Pests (mice) have not been an issue when using mulch in my shed, as I place a lot of moth balls around the perimeter of the mulch.

If the deep South is seeing more of these really cold fronts, a little more protection than the norm may be needed.

Thanks for sharing Ben. I find it interesting that those Deep South figs performed so well this winter. I guess it can be attributed to the Celeste parentage. Tried and true.

You are welcome LeConte. I am happy that it will help members to know what variety to buy.

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The fig tree nursery owners up north should take note of your video.

Denise, I was absolutely taking notes during the video!
Here's the list of varieties that came back for Ben:
Dr. Gowaty
Pan E Vino Dark
Olympian
Brown Turkey
Vern's Brown Turkey
Stella
Vilette de Bordeaux
Acciano
Nero 600M
Italian Black
Italian White (mislabeled)
Lemon
LSU Improved Celeste
LSU Scott's Black
LSU O'Rourke
LSU Red
LSU Gold
LSU Champagne
LSU Tiger
LSU Purple
Texas Everbearing
Rockaway Green
Marseilles Black VS
White Marseilles
Little Miss Figgy
Ponte Tresa
White Genoa
Hunt
Peter's Honey
Black Madeira (mislabeled)
Chicago Hardy
Sweet Joy
Letizia
Little Ruby
Eretabe Delight Unk. (big and delicious)
Desert King
Celeste
Black Donov
Carini
Unknown CDD Grise (maybe)
Fignomenal
Texas BA-1
Ciliegia Dolce
Colonel Littman's Black Cross
Emalyn Purple
Fico Bianco
Maltese Beauty
Alma
Karadeniz White
Danny's Delight
Sister Madeline's Yellow
Fort Mill Park
Lattarula Italian Honey

Ben, thank you for sharing this. I was really sad to see that Sweet Felicia, the one you named after your mother, did not come back.  I hope it will and that it's just late getting started this year.  Yesterday I went to the Fig Study site and started digging down to the roots (with my fingers, because I didn't plan to do that when I went) to get a look at the roots.  We still had 8 out of 20 figs that were showing no signs of growth.  On one of them I uncovered a leaf that was on its way up.  On 5 of them I uncovered a few very healthy-looking roots (solid, orange, still connected to the main trunk).  And on 2 of them I just found brown, squishy/rotted, and broken off roots. 

I'm encouraged that some of the figs may still send up a new branch this year.  But I'm also wondering if they might take the year off.  Two people that I know locally have said that they thought their fig died one time in the past because it didn't come back one year but then the following year it sent up a new shoot. Has anyone heard stories like that or had any experience like that?  These were both in-ground figs that the people were talking about.

I'll try to put together a list of my in-ground figs that survived the winter here for comparison.

Wow Andrea, you are amazing. Writing out the names of the varieties of the comeback figs. Thank you for doing this for the members. Yes unfortunately Sweet Felicia didn't make it. I might rename one of the comeback figs that I lost the name tag and called it Sweet Felicia Unk.

Thank you Andrea for typing up the list.  I just wrote them down by hand for typing later.   

Even though this is a great loss, many people can benefit from this information.  I do not have any trees in the ground because I have been afraid of losing them due to cold weather.  As I reduce my collection, I can use cold hardiness as a top priority because I do not want to wrap my trees.  I am too lazy. lol If any plant in my yard, except citrus,  cannot handle the weather thrown at them, they won't be replaced if they perish.