Tis the season to clone new fig trees from cuttings – scion wood, about 6 to 12 inches long. Fig trees are one of the easiest trees or plants to clone, using short lengths of small limbs, anywhere between a quarter inch to an inch thick, or thinner. No rooting hormone needed. Rooting fig tree cuttings is said to be so easy a Neanderthal could do it, which is a good thing since most people actually have some genetic material from Neanderthals.

Sturdy fig limbs have reportedly been used to stake tomato plants and then come alive partway through the summer as fig trees: the “stakes” pushed out roots and limbs and leaves. While more care than simply driving a stake into the ground is usually required, rooting fig scion can be readily achieved on a much smaller scale, in a plastic cup on a windowsill, for example. Purchasing fig tree cuttings is an affordable way to add varieties of figs to grow close at hand. Pruning the dormant wood of your existing fig trees to root as cuttings will freely multiply your number of trees.

For step by step guidance on how to root new fig trees, see “A simple way to root fig cuttings.” These rooted cuttings, below, small fig trees now, were merely  6 to 8 inch (live) sticks of fig wood last month, December. With luck, they could produce a few figs late this coming summer or fall. They are more likely to produce figs the following year, with heavier production each year thereafter.