From Orwell to Pink Floyd: Animals & A Fig's Tale VL p.3

[ish mailian]

Invasive?
Creeping fig .....


Creeping fig (Ficus pumila), hardy from U.S. Department of Agriculture
plant hardiness zone 8 to 9 or 11, depending on cultivar, is the only
member of the fig family to slither up walls and crawl on the ground.
It seldom flowers, so unlike some of its messier relatives, it
produces little or no fruit.

Creeping fig’s remarkable growth rate allows a few vines to completely
cover a wall or pergola in a year or two. The vine grows vertically 20
to 40 feet, then sends out side shoots horizontally. When young,
creeping fig grows lacy patterns of small, glossy heart-shaped leaves,
densely arranged along a multi-stemmed vine in a most attractive,
delicate pattern. when the plant reaches maturity at about two years
of age, it continues to grow aggressively sideways, producing leathery
oval leaves up to 4 inches long on thick, woody stems. Grown on a
tree, its aggressive habit might even begin to shade out the tree's
crown.



Creeping fig is evergreen within its hardiness range, making it a good
candidate for coverage of ugly walls, arbors or trellises. Happily, it
withstands a few cold blasts down to about 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
Although it will drop leaves after a cold snap, it will re-grow leaves
and, with some pruning, look as good as new within the next season. It
also presents an alternative where invasive evergreen ground covers
might be initial choices.  it has similar potential for escape and
requires attentive, regular pruning for control.



Creeping fig requires no ties, because it climbs by means of little
sucker arms that hold on to wood, concrete, stone or metal without any
additional help. This may be very cool, but the little suckers also
hold on like grim death, taking paint or bits of concrete, stone and
wood whenever they are pulled away from a surface. For this reason,
most gardeners grow the vines on a trellis, topiary frame or some
framework that is dispensable.

Creeping fig suffers few diseases and resists most pests. It prefers
part shade, but will also grow in full shade or morning sun. To
complete its endearing qualities, creeping fig is highly drought
tolerant. All of this is fortunate enough, but the vine also tolerates
slightly alkaline as well as slightly acidic soil and actually prefers
less fertile soil, thriving in infertile clay or sandy loam. To finish
its list of cool characteristics, creeping figs are moderately
tolerant of aerosol salt, meaning that it can be planted near the
ocean, where dunes or other barriers provide a buffer for the plant.



It can become invasive and cover structures and landscape features if
not maintained and its growth contained. When climbing buildings or
wooden structures, the woody tendrils can cling or root in, and damage
structures and/or their surface finishes.[citation needed] The plant
requires the fig wasp Blastophaga pumilae for pollination, and is fed
upon by larvae of the butterfly Marpesia petreus.



Like other plant species in the family Moraceae, contact with the
milky sap of Ficus pumila can cause phytophotodermatitis,[8] a
potentially serious skin inflammation. Although the plant is not
poisonous per se, F. pumila is listed in the FDA Database of Poisonous
Plants.

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/cool-creeping-fig-plants-66003.html



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficus_pumila

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 9:57 AM ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> A little tale of the fig in Zoyd's yard.
> Maybe you don't give a fig and maybe I don't shivagit if you do or
> don't ... here, I've provided the link for the article by Karp and
> I've excerpted for you if you would rather not.
>
> I will examine the squadron of Blue Jays and the Carrier Pigeons and
> the Dog next.
>
> If this has been done, let me kow and I'll move on to the dress.
>
>
> By DAVID KARP
>
> AUG. 11, 1999 12 AM
>
> SPECIAL TO THE TIMES, LA TIMES
>
> “What fruit has the eye of a widow and the cloak of a beggar?” asks an
> old Spanish riddle. Answer: a really ripe fig, revealing its honeyed
> lusciousness by a teardrop of syrup at the bottom and a tattered skin.
>
>
>
> For millenniums, voluptuous figs, fresh and dried, have inspired
> aficionados to mania. So much of the story of figs seems mythic: the
> miracle of caprification, in which a tiny, frustrated wasp plays Cupid
> to figs; the breakthrough a century ago that harnessed this process
> for California farmers; the saga of the Los Angeles promoter who
> founded a Fresno fig empire with 660,000 blasts of dynamite.
>
> […]
>
> Figs were introduced to California by Franciscan missionaries,
> starting with the founding of Mission San Diego in 1769. The
> dark-skinned, pink-fleshed Mission fig was the only kind grown here
> until the 1850s, when settlers brought other varieties from the East
> Coast and Europe.
>
>
>
> In 1880, G.P. Rixford of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin imported
> 14,000 cuttings of this variety [the Smyrna fig, the “true fig of
> commerce”]  from Turkey, which he distributed to subscribers. The
> trees flourished, but, to everyone’s dismay, the figs dropped, unripe,
> at walnut size.
>
>
>
> The problem was that, although most figs (called common figs) bear
> fruit to maturity on their own, Smyrna figs must be pollinated by
> Blastophaga psenes, the fig wasp. This gnat-sized insect lives only in
> dry, inedible wild figs, called caprifigs.
>
>
>
> Since ancient times, Mediterranean growers have assisted this
> pollination process, called caprification, by hanging branches of
> caprifigs in Smyrna fig orchards as the female wasps emerge from the
> caprifigs in the spring, coated with pollen. Searching for new
> caprifigs in which to lay their eggs, they enter Smyrnas through the
> eyes at the bottom, and dust the tiny flowers inside with their
> pollen. The wasps die without laying their eggs, since the Smyrna fig
> flowers are too long for their ovipositors, but the figs develop.
>
>
>
> Although many American fruit experts considered caprification to be a
> peasant superstition, growers repeatedly imported caprifigs; each
> time, something went wrong, and the wasps didn’t take hold. Finally,
> George Roeding of Fresno succeeded in establishing a colony, and in
> August 1899 his orchard bore large, blond, plump Smyrna figs. After a
> contest, Roeding re-christened the variety Calimyrna, for California
> Smyrna.
>
>
>
> California’s big fig boom began in 1910, when a Los Angeles real
> estate developer named J.C. Forkner leased a swath of hog wallow
> badlands northwest of Fresno. To this point, the area had served only
> as pasture, because an adobe-like layer of hardpan lay a few feet
> under the surface and the pockmarked terrain made irrigation
> impossible.
>
>
>
> But Forkner had a vision. He hired dozens of tractors, still novel in
> those years, to level the ground, blasted 660,000 holes through the
> hardpan so that trees could take root and planted figs on 12,000
> acres. Next he blizzarded the nation with advertisements and brochures
> promising, “Own your own Fig Garden, You’ll be rich! Five acres
> produce $4,000 annual income.” Chasing this lure of profits in
> paradise, hundreds of aspiring farmers, many from the East, bought
> into Forkner’s Fig Gardens.
>
>
>
> California fig cultivation peaked at 42,500 acres in 1927. Forkner
> lost his land in the Depression, as did most of the Fig Garden
> smallholders. He later recouped his holdings and died a wealthy man in
> 1969. After a boom during World War II the fig industry settled into a
> long, slow decline, squeezed by increasing labor costs and cheaper
> imports.
>
>
>
> Business recovered somewhat and stabilized in the 1970s and ‘80s, but
> as Fresno sprawled northward, development gobbled up much of the old
> Fig Gardens. Most growers moved 25 miles north to cheaper land in the
> Madera-Chowchilla area. Today, only about 1,500 acres of figs--less
> than a tenth of the state’s 16,500 acres--remain in the former “Fig
> Capital of America.”
>
>
>
> Along California Highway 99, orchards lie abandoned, strewn with
> discarded sofas and television sets, the weeds shoulder-high. Heedless
> that the flanks are turned, the venerable, gnarled trees still bear
> generous crops, but only squirrels and birds appreciate the soft,
> sugary fruit.
>
>
>
> Aggravating problems for fig growers, Nabisco, the dominant buyer of
> dried figs, decided five years ago to pad out its Fig Newtons line
> with products made from other fruit. This cannibalized sales of the
> traditional cookies, and fig paste prices collapsed to $300 a ton from
> $1,000 a ton. Growers had to adapt or face ruin.
>
>
>
> Some decided to emphasize sales of fresh figs, which have grown by a
> third to a half in the last five years. It’s a small, high-end market,
> less than 5% of the fig crop by weight but lucrative for those who
> master the tricky logistics of harvesting and shipping the delicate,
> perishable fruits.
>
>
>
> […]
>
> The chief problem is that the same fig wasps that pollinate the seeds,
> giving Calimyrnas their distinctive nutty crunch, also introduce fungi
> and smuts that spoil a high percentage of the crop. “Naturals,” large
> perfect dried figs, are rare.
>
>
>
> A researcher at the University of California Kearney station, Jim
> Doyle, has spent nine years trying to breed the Holy Grail of fig
> growers: a new variety with the flavor of Calimyrna that doesn’t
> require caprification. Judging from a recent tasting of his most
> promising selections, he’s tantalizingly close, but complete success
> might be out of reach: Fertilized seeds seem essential to the
> Calimyrna’s flavor.
>
>
>
> The half-dozen leading varieties of figs are well suited to commercial
> cultivation, but connoisseurs and collectors around the state claim
> that some of the more unusual kinds offer far superior flavor.
>
>
>
> https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-aug-11-fo-64820-story.html