Little did I know... (a.k.a. Monster Fig)

Little did I know when I looked at that little fig tree what was hidden from view. This 4' high tree that volunteered to come up behind the shed was reported to be tough. The seller of our house said it was unstoppable. My garden book said fig trees get to be 15 - 30 ft tall and wide. It had to go. I've dug other things out by the roots before so after cutting back the twigs growing off the stump I took my shovel and started digging.

I followed one root over to the gravel where I knew it had grown into some hay bales that had been left to decompose. That went pretty well. A couple roots headed under the shed. I cut them off under the building.

Then, I follow another root that headed toward the neighbor's yard. It got bigger and bigger the further from the stump I dug. Then it split into three. Oddly though, it didn't split as it went away from the stump but rather toward the stump. It's as if the stump came from some mother tree somewhere - which makes a lot of sense - except there's no mother tree to be found. Rather than dig into the neighbor's yard we took an electric saw to the 3" root and cut it off at the property line. By then, I was six feet or so from the stump and had created quite a hole.

There were still more roots to dig out so I proceeded to dig. That was 3 days ago. I'm still digging. In the photo below you see about half of what I've dug. The stump I have referred to is way in the background. You can't even see it really. It's about 3' this side of the gravel.

What I found from this point on is even more amazing. More often than not, as I followed a root like this along thinking it would get smaller and I'd come to the end, I would find just the opposite. The more common experience is that it gets larger and goes deeper and probably crosses under another larger root. I suspect the really large root in the photo below is from a different tree that was on the neighbor's lot but had been chopped down. That stump is about 3 feet across so I know it was one huge tree. If I can get the fig root out from under it, I'll just cover up again. It's about 3' deep.

I'm now 25' or more, and around the corner, from that stump. They criss-cross all throughout the garden area. Some roots run just inches below the surface, others are deeper. Most of the shallow ones go deep at once point or another. After taking these photos, I continued to dig. The smaller root you see in these two final photos took a steep downward turn. By then, the sun was going down and I was getting tired. I wonder what I'll find tomorrow; assuming I can dig tomorrow. Possible thunderstorms are in the forecast.

Little did I know...