'Lily's Berry Delight (Unknown)' (it's fig fruit falls under the flavor sub-groups '
'Elegant Berry, Exotic Berry', 'Complex Berry' flavor')
Formally called/named 'Lily Wong' by myself, due to not having a better name for it before.
An unknown cultivar of fig tree that I have helped to rescue. The original cuttings came from a fig tree owned by a Chinese woman named 'Lily Wong' living in Petaluma, California, she ordered it from some mail order nursery in approximately 2006, she received it as a bare root sapling, she does not remember what cultivar it was sold as, or where she bought it from. Yet it does not seem to be any known cultivar.
"Sonoma county winter temps get down to 28F with regularity. And fairly often drop to the mid-20s when we have an Arctic cold front. Some of our open pasture lands drop to the high teens (17-18F), but I doubt it got that cold where Lily is growing her tree in the city of Petaluma."
"Her tree has a western exposure, sheltered from the winter morning sun by her house. It's planted about 8-10 feet from the western wall of her home, so receives reflected light and heat from that wall. There is no shelter or blocking shrubs on the north or south sides. A public sidewalk runs over a portion of the rootzone on the west side, which also likely acts as a heat sink for the soil in winter and a cooling zone on the hottest summer days."
"Lily shapes the tree canopy by weaving / tying overly long flexible outer branches in a circular direction around the canopy edge giving it a bit of a lollipop shape, rather than by cutting the branch tips off. She's also training some of the branches to reach up to her garage roof, so she can climb onto the roof to do more harvesting. All that said, I suspect the tree would take well to espalier against a warm wall if someone wanted to give it a try. "
'Lily's fig cultivar' was discovered, because some time before December 5th, 2010, 'Lily' started sharing figs from her tree with her friends, her friends at the 'Tai Chi class' that she attended, Lily was born in December 1924, so she was 86 at that time.
I myself discovered this cultivar September 15th, 2013, on a blog called FigsWithBri.com, the blog entry is about a woman named 'Lily Wong', and about the figs from her fig tree, she's taken great care of her fig tree, and she's proud of her fig tree. Here's the blog entry
https://figswithbri.com/lilys-sweet-purple-figs/
I received a first batch of cuttings taken from the tree on October 17th 2013, 3 cuttings, plus 3 figs, all 3 cuttings died.
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I did not ask for more cuttings for a while, I received a second batch of cuttings on March 16th 2015, this time 6 cuttings, I had a friend root them this time, out of 6 cuttings one cutting survived and is a tree now, It barely survived, and is very healthy in the state of Georgia, it went to it's home in Georgia, August 2015.
The cuttings root very poorly. Out of 9 cuttings only one tree survived.
Season 1 (2015), at 5 months old (August 2015) the tree in Georgia was about 3 1/2 inches tall, when it left for it's new home in Georgia. Here is the tree shown in two different angles.
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Season 2 (2016), at about 1 1/4 years old it was about double the size that it was at 5 months old, that was very slow.
These photos were taken when the tree was 11 months old, 6 months after the last two photos were taken.
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Season 3 (2017), the tree in Georgia had one fig that did not abort, not fully ripe yet it was pretty good, yet by end of season three the tree was about 5 feet tall, it grew like a weed that year in a pot! It's a slow starter at everything, at rooting, at growing vegetation, and at fruiting. Yet in time it makes up for the slowness.
Season 4 (2018) the tree had a few figs, all aborted, maybe because it was pruned low to send me cuttings, and to send me a tiny tiny air layering!
February 9th, 2018 I got two cuttings and an air layering of 'Lily's Berry Delight (Unknown)' from the tree in Georgia, I no longer have access to cuttings from the original tree in California. The air-layering was a tiny tiny thing, I sent it to a fig friend of mine who has access to a plant incubator, he was the perfect choice of a person to make sure that the tiny tree survived, it grew much faster than I thought it could, in part thanks to the plant incubator, and the low light warm area, that he put it in. It went dormant in 2018 at about 3 feet tall, single stemmed, not bad for 8 or 9 months of growth, from tiny tiny to that tall. This 'Lily's Berry Delight' fig tree is located in 'Western North Carolina', it's figs all aborted in 2018.
I gave the two cuttings that came with the air-layering, to another fig friend to root, she is very good at rooting cuttings, all was going great until all of the cuttings she was rooting died, because an air conditioning repair man accidentally contaminated the cuttings with air conditioner fungus, when he knocked the cover off her propagator, not saying a word to my friend who was rooting them. Later she noticed and it was too late.
So out of 11 cuttings, and one air-layering, two trees survived, I still do not have the cultivar here yet!
Season 5 (2019) March 19th 2019 I received an e-mail 'with photos' about the 'Lily's Berry Delight' that is in Georgia, showing that the still potted tree was already full of brebas of a decent size, and they had some leaves opening up, it has went from late cropping, to earlier than normal cropping!
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September 2, 2019 photos of a fig on the 'Lily's Berry Delight' tree that is in 'Western North Carolina'.
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Season 6 (2020)
August 13th 2020 I was told that the tree of this cultivar in the state of Georgia is doing great. That it had five or six large figs that were a couple of weeks away from ripening.
August 18th 2020 I was sent the following 2 photos of one of the main crop figs from the tree in Georgia, a huge fig for a main crop fig, those photos were taken the morning of that same day.
On August 18th 2020, I was told that the main crop fig in those photos "tasted really great." "Very refreshing, not overly sweet but 'old world fig' tasting. If I didn't know I had no wasp here I'd think it was pollinated. Very impressed."
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'Lily's Berry Delight' figs are jammy with a slight juiciness, they melt in the mouth, even the skin melts, skin has no bad taste. The figs have many seeds, which are small, and crunchy yet easy to digest. Under certain weather conditions the fruit shape can look a lot like a geode. The fruit of 'Lily's Berry Delight' has a strong, very distinct delicious raspberry/strawberry or raspberry flavor, flavor is definitely more pronounced when fully ripe, and they become softer, more succulent as they ripen, when they are fully ripe they sort of smell like a fully ripe banana.
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'Lily's Berry Delight' is a heavy producer, and it produces for a long time each season, one of the first cultivars to start producing, one of the last cultivars to stop producing. Breba figs are up to extra large in size, main crop figs are medium to large in size. The breba crop can grow twice as big as the main crop on the same tree, the breba crop stops ripening by late July or early August in Petaluma, California, the main crop starts to ripen in August, and sometimes can continue having ripe figs until mid-November, or even in to Early December if the weather is optimal, The figs have a void inside yet that void varies in size depending on climate, that void looks bigger than it actually is!
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My only personal experience with the figs of 'Lily's Berry Delight' were main crop figs, the largest I had seen in person was about 2 1/4th inches long, and about 1 3/4th inches wide, the figs were mailed to me.
Since not all figs with a void are sensitive to moisture and rain, plus how good the figs are, I think it's worth trying it in not so dry climates. Oh and it's definitely a common fig which some of the fig cultivars that it resembles are not common figs, for example Black Genoa is not a common fig.
As far as the tree it's self, and the appearance of the figs themselves they look identical to Black Jack and it's figs. Yet it's figs do not taste like those of black jack, they have no melon flavor. Black Jack figs taste like strawberry and Melon. The figs of 'Lily's Berry Delight' are larger than the figs of Black Jack.
When comparing photos of a 'Lily's Berry Delight' fig tree to a Black Jack fig tree, the trees appear to be identical. Yet based upon what I know about 'Lily's Berry Delight' it sounds like a 15 footer or bigger, and once it starts to grow fast it grows large very fast like the Dominick cultivar, yet Black Jack is a dwarf fig tree.
'Lily's Berry Delight' in comparison to Black Genoa, the fruit of Black Genoa looks identical to the fruit of 'Lily's Berry Delight', yet as you know appearances can be deceiving, the figs on 'Lily's Berry Delight' are much bigger than the figs of Black Genoa, the flavors of the two different cultivars are very different. The leaves of the two are different. 'Lily's Berry Delight' has five lobed leaves, never more and never less. Black Genoa has three lobes dominant with a few five lobe leaves.
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Marseilles Black VS has smaller sized figs than 'Lily's Berry Delight'. The taste of these two cultivars of fig are nothing alike. Both these cultivars have 5 lobed leaves yet they still have different types of fig leaves.
California Brown Turkey (San Piero, improved brown turkey) is generally 3-lobed, like I said above 'Lily's Berry Delight' leaves are always 5 lobed. Figs of California Brown Turkey are large like the main crop of 'Lily's Berry Delight' yet 'Lily's Berry Delight's' breba crop are extra large. These sizes are without the aid of the fig wasp, bigger than California brown turkey. The figs of 'Lily's Berry Delight' do not have the same taste as the figs of California Brown Turkey have, terminal buds (vegetative buds aka leaves and stems) of California Brown Turkey are brick red, 'Lily's Berry Delight' has no red vegetation color at all.
