Fig Ficus macrophylla

A mature Moreton Bay fig is a piece of landscape rather than a garden plant, with a buttressed trunk, a crown wider than most suburban blocks are long, and a life measured in centuries. The leaves are large, thick and dark, with a rusty felted underside that shows whenever the wind turns them over. In the wild it often germinates in the fork of another tree and sends roots down to the ground from there. Parks, school grounds, coastal reserves and acreage entries are its proper home.

Room, and the services you have to keep it away from

It grows through the warm coastal east, from Queensland down through New South Wales and into frost free parts of Victoria, in full sun to part shade with moderate water once established. Frost limits it inland, and young plants need protection through their first winters in cooler districts. It handles salt wind and poor coastal sand better than most large trees, and growth is fast in warm conditions. Depth of soil and an open root run matter far more than fertility. The failure mode is scale and roots together, and it cannot be fixed after the fact. Surface and buttress roots lift paving, crack kerbs and split retaining walls, and the finer roots find sewer and stormwater lines. No pruning regime, root barrier or remedial treatment makes a Moreton Bay fig safe next to a house, a pool shell or a driveway. Plant it where nothing will need to be dug, paved or built inside the root zone for the next hundred years. Ripe purple figs feed birds and flying foxes, which also means fruit and droppings on anything parked beneath.

Choosing between the three big native figs

All three are east coast natives that end up enormous, and the differences show in leaf and outline. Macrophylla has the largest leaves of the group and the heaviest rusty felting underneath, and it makes the broadest crown of the three. Ficus rubiginosa also carries rusty felt, but on a smaller leaf, and it branches lower into a dome that suits an exposed coastal site. Ficus obliqua has the smallest, glossiest leaves with no rust at all, and it is the one that stays presentable clipped in a container. Pick macrophylla when you have genuine parkland and want the tree that will still be a landmark in a century. See the rest of our feature trees if the block is smaller and the scale of this one is more than the site can carry.

Formative pruning and feeding a young fig

Do the structural pruning young, in the warm months, and get it over with. Lift the crown to the clearance you need and remove crossing or badly angled limbs while the wounds are still small, because large cuts on an old fig invite decay and the work quickly gets beyond a ladder. Container grown plants take root pruning and top trimming in spring to stay in scale. Feed in early spring with a complete slow release fertiliser and water regularly through the first two or three summers, after which an established tree in reasonable soil looks after itself. Mulch the root zone widely, and avoid paving or compacting inside the drip line.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 12 sizes, from 200mm up to 2000L, priced from $30.95 to $9629.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. The smaller pots hold younger plants that cost less each and establish quickly, which suits hedges, screens and mass planting where the plant count adds up. The larger sizes carry several more years of growth on the farm and give height and presence straight away, which is what you want for a single feature position or a screen that cannot wait. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to fast growing screening plants.