Creeping Fig Ficus pumila (Ficus repens)

Creeping fig is the one climber in this range, a self-clinging vine that lays flat overlapping sheets of small heart-shaped leaves straight onto masonry without wires, mesh or a frame. Adhesive rootlets do the gripping, bonding to concrete, besser block, mortar and render hard enough to hold for decades. Pool builders, strata managers and courtyard designers use it because it covers a blank wall quickly and evenly, and the small pot sizes double as indoor trailers and terrarium fillers in bright indirect light.

Which walls it belongs on

Full sun to part shade suits it from the tropics down to cool temperate gardens, and it handles coastal exposure and reflected heat once it has attached. Keep moisture up steadily through the first year, because that is when the rootlets bite, and a plant that dries out repeatedly lets go of the wall and has to start over. Any reasonable garden soil does, improved with compost and mulched at the base, and plants set 600mm to 900mm apart along a wall knit together evenly. In warm humid districts it also runs along the ground and roots as it goes, so give nearby beds a defined edge. The failure mode here is not the plant, it is the surface you put it on. Those rootlets bond permanently to paint, render and mortar, and pulling the growth off later takes the coating with it and leaves a lasting shadow of root scars underneath. On raw concrete, besser block or a retaining wall you will never resurface, that is a fair trade. On a painted wall, on a neighbour's fence, or anywhere it can reach window frames, gutters and roof tiles, it is not.

Creeping fig against the clipped figs

Every other fig in this range is a tree you either let run or clip into shape. This one has no trunk to speak of and needs a vertical surface to do anything at all. If the goal is screening in front of a wall rather than on it, Hill's Weeping Fig is the better pick, because a pleached or clipped panel stands clear of the render and can be cut back to a frame without taking the surface with it. Choose creeping fig when the wall itself is the eyesore and you want it under foliage permanently. Indoors, the small sizes trail from a shelf or soften a pot rim, while Fiddle Leaf Fig gives you an upright leafy specimen instead. It also sits alongside the rest of our climbers for wire and trellis work.

Shearing and feeding

Shear it two or three times a year, in early spring and again through summer, to keep the flat juvenile growth coming. Left alone it matures into coarse woody stems that stand out from the wall, carrying large leathery leaves and small inedible figs, and reversing that takes a hard cut back into old wood and a scruffy season afterwards. Trim it clear of gutters, window frames and roof edges every time you go near it. Feed in early spring and again in early summer with a complete slow release fertiliser, and water through dry spells while it is establishing. Renew mulch at the base each spring. Wear gloves, since the milky sap irritates skin.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 6 sizes, from 70mm up to 200mm, priced from $16.95 to $29.95 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. These are younger plants, priced for planting in quantity, and they establish quickly once in the ground. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to fast growing screening plants.