FABULOUS FIGS!

Figs are exotic, delicious, attractive and easy to care for. What more can you expect from a fruit tree? asks nurseryman and fruit

- David Patch

A fig tree towards the end of the summer is surely one of the most glorious sights for any gardener. The foliage, large and bold, tends to stay in good shape, and provides a lush backdrop at a time when many other plants are looking past their best. The fruit, which like a watched pot have remained small and unripe for months, start to swell and change colour, until there is that tell-tale drop of nectar at the base which signals it is perfectly ripe and ready to eat.

I think a fig tree (along with a quince) is one of the most decorative and delicious fruit trees it is possible to own, and every garden should have one. This month we will look at this most fabled of fruit and discover how it is possible to grow one in even the smallest of spaces.

A POTTED HISTORY Figs are some of the oldest fruit known to man, and certainly one of the first that were cultivated as a crop. Subfossils of fig fruits have been found in the remains of a Neolithic village on the border between Jordan and Israel, and date back over 11,000 years – long before wheat or barley were domesticated. Figs were well known to the Ancient Greeks and Romans (the writer Pliny described more than 30 different varieties, including ‘Kadota’ which can still be found for sale today), and they became widespread throughout the world from the 15th century onwards, from Afghanistan to Portugal, to India and over to the New World. It is thought that Cardinal Reginald Pole introduced the fig to the UK in the 1500s – one of the original trees planted in 1556 is still growing in the gardens at Lambeth Palace to this day.