What counts as a ficus?
Ficus is a huge genus, about 800 species found across India, parts of Asia, the Pacific islands and Australia. This page is about the ones used as hedges, street trees and houseplants: the weeping fig (Ficus benjamina), the Hills weeping fig (Ficus microcarpa var. hillii) and the rubber plant. The big native Moreton Bay and Port Jackson figs are on our fig trees page.
None of them stay small. The City of Sydney gives the Hills weeping fig a potential street height of 20 to 25 m, and the weeping fig 15 to 20 m. A Gardening Australia presenter told the ABC that a rubber plant moved outdoors can grow into a large tree with the potential to ruin paving, fencing or infrastructure.
Why are ficus roots such a problem?
Because they're vigorous, and they share the ground with paths, slabs and drains. The City of Sydney says it avoids street tree species renowned for vigorous root systems that lift pavements, and Bundaberg Regional Council advises against planting any fig near sewer pipes.
Cutting them out isn't a simple fix. In Cumberland, west of Sydney, pruning live roots greater than 30mm in diameter needs council consent, whatever the species, so ask your own council what applies. Losing structural roots matters too: Hume City Council says that if a tree's structural root zone is breached, the chance of it falling over is substantially increased. That's what tree root removal and root barriers are for.
Ficus in storm and cyclone country
Weeping figs don't do well in a big blow. After Cyclone Yasi, Greening Australia found 55.35% of Townsville's tree green waste came from just five species, weeping fig among them, and City of Darwin's 2018 report rates weeping fig and Hill's weeping fig as low cyclone resilience and high risk.
The Darwin report also says most storm tree failures there come from lack of maintenance, such as pruning, or from roots being cut or damaged. In the north, a ficus near the house is worth an arborist's look well before the wet.
Trimming a ficus: yours or theirs?
You can
- Clip the faces of a ficus hedge with hand shears, only as high as you can reach with both feet on the ground.
- Keep a rubber plant or weeping fig in a pot rather than planting it in the garden.
- Pull out a fig seedling sprouting in another tree's bark while it's small and within reach. Gardening Australia's tree surgery factsheet says a self-seeded strangler fig should be removed so it won't take over.
- Keep dated photos of any paving or edging that's lifting.
Leave to an arborist
- Any root cutting or barrier work, once you know what consent the council needs.
- Reducing a hedge that has turned into a row of trees.
- Removing a ficus beside pipes, a slab or the house, and grinding the stump.
- Council street figs aren't yours to touch: report problems to the council (see council street trees).
Is a ficus protected?
It can be. Fraser Coast Regional Council's significant tree register lists weeping figs at Seafront Oval and on Main Street in Pialba, and a tall ficus on private land can meet a council's size test like any other tree. We couldn't find reliable timing advice for pruning ficus hedges, so we haven't given a season. Before a removal or heavy root work, check with the council through our tree removal permits page.
Ficus trees: what to do next
We'd leave the branches for later and look at the ground first. If roots are lifting paving or getting near pipes, we'd get an arborist to work out whether a barrier will do or the tree has to go, and we'd check the council's root rules before a single root is cut.
Want an arborist to look at it?
Tell us the job and your postcode, and a local arborist calls you to talk it through.