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Natal fig

Alan Manson / Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 4.0

Natal fig

Ficus natalensis

An evergreen African fig grown outside frost-free climates as a houseplant and, above all, as a bonsai: Wikipedia says it is a popular bonsai because it grows fast and is robust. In the wild it is a shrub or tree up to 98 feet tall that can start life as an epiphyte on another tree, Figweb says, with leathery, oblong to obovate leaves 1 to 3.9 inches long and small round figs in pairs at the leaf bases that ripen reddish orange or yellow, according to Flora Zambesiaca. It grows wild across tropical Africa, from Senegal east to Sudan and Kenya and south to KwaZulu-Natal. No source rates its cold hardiness, so this record keeps it indoors except in USDA zones 11 and warmer. NC State Extension says fig latex can irritate skin, and the ASPCA lists weeping fig, the closest fig it covers, as toxic to dogs, cats and horses. In Uganda its inner bark is beaten into barkcloth, a craft on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage.

Climate fit: narrow (13/100)

Container

Focal point

Light

Full sun / Part shade

Water

Moderate water

Mature size

98.4 ft tall · 98.4 ft apart

Hardy in zones

11a-12b

nearly frost-free to frost-free winters

Native in Illinois

No

Grown as an ornamental, and in Uganda for barkcloth; none of the sources consulted describe its figs as food.

°C

°F

Cold hardiness

These values are location-based: this location's current hardiness is the baseline, and the 2050 value is a projected future climate for this same location.

Now

Zone 6b

Plotwright

USDA Zone 6b

-5°F to 0°F

Won't grow here

2050

2100

Zone 7a

Plotwright

0°F to 5°F

Won't grow here

In plain terms: This location has cold winters. Its winters are projected to keep warming through 2050.

✕

Out of range today and still out of range in 2050.

Heat tolerance

Heat tolerance values are location-based too: heat days today are observed at this site, and the 2050 value projects this same location under a future climate.

Loading AHS heat-zone data for this location...

What it needs

Conditions

Light

Full sun / Part shade

Water

Moderate water

Spacing

98.4 ft

Habit

Evergreen tree or shrub with leathery leaves, grown indoors as a potted tree or bonsai; in frost-free climates a large tree that can start life as an epiphyte on another tree

Care tips

•

Give it bright light and a free-draining mix in a pot with drainage holes: NC State's page on the fig genus lists full sun to partial shade and good drainage, and PIER records that it tolerates some shade.

•

Keep it indoors through any frost: no source rates its cold hardiness, so this record grows it outdoors only in USDA zone 11 and warmer.

•

As a bonsai it takes hard root pruning, PIER notes from a bonsai care guide for figs, and shoots can be cut back once they have grown 12 leaves.

Lifecycle

Planting

Grow it indoors in a pot with drainage holes, in a bright spot. NC State Extension's page on the fig genus lists full sun to partial shade and good drainage, and PIER's weed risk assessment records it as a plant that tolerates shade at some stage of its life. No source rates its cold hardiness, so outside USDA zone 11 and warmer it stays a houseplant all year. Wikipedia says it is popular for bonsai because it grows fast and is robust.

Transplanting

Outside zone 11 a pot is its permanent home; repot into a free-draining mix, since NC State's genus page asks for good drainage. Grown as a bonsai, it takes vigorous root pruning when it is repotted, as PIER's assessment notes from a bonsai care guide for figs.

Early growth

NC State's genus page rates figs as medium-growing, and Wikipedia calls this one fast-growing. To shape a bonsai, PIER's assessment, citing the same bonsai guide, notes that shoots are cut back once they have grown 12 leaves. Watch for spider mites, scale and mealybugs, the pests NC State names for figs, and for anthracnose, bacterial diseases and root rot.

Maturity

In the wild it becomes a shrub or tree up to 98 feet tall, growing in the ground or as a hemi-epiphyte that starts life on another tree, Figweb says after Berg and Wiebes (1992); Flora Zambesiaca, which PIER quotes, adds that it is sometimes semi-scandent, partly scrambling. Its figs grow in pairs in the leaf axils, 0.6 to 0.8 inches across when fresh, and ripen reddish orange or yellowish to brown. In a pot or as a bonsai it stays the size its container and pruning allow.

Propagation

PIER lists seed, and NC State says most figs can also be raised from cuttings, layering and grafting. PIER's assessment, citing Dave's Garden, notes that the seed does not store well and should be sown as soon as possible. Wear gloves when taking cuttings or pruning: NC State says fig latex can irritate skin, especially in sunlight.

Native range

Climate notes

•

Indoors except in USDA zones 11 and warmer. No source consulted gives a hardiness zone or a minimum temperature for this fig: NC State Extension has no species page, Plants For A Future has no record, UF/IFAS has no assessment and the Missouri Botanical Garden could not be reached. NC State's page on the fig genus lists zones 7a to 11a, but that range covers hardy figs such as the common fig and says nothing about this species. This record treats it as frost-tender and grows it outdoors only where winters stay frost-free, in zone 11 and warmer, where the coldest night of the year stays above 40°F. PIER's weed risk assessment rates it a plant of tropical and subtropical climates.

•

The native range here is taken from Kew's World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), the dataset POWO publishes: West Africa from Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia east through Mali, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria; central Africa from Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Gabon, the Gulf of Guinea islands, Congo and the DR Congo to Sudan and South Sudan; Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi; and south through Angola, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Namibia to Eswatini and South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal and northern provinces. GRIN Taxonomy gives a shorter list of countries, from Sudan, Mali, Ghana and Nigeria to Eswatini and South Africa, after the regional floras.

•

Figweb follows the fig botanist Cornelis Berg in dividing it into subspecies: subsp. natalensis grows from north-eastern South Africa to Uganda and Kenya, in wet and dry forest and in woodland in rocky places up to 7,218 feet, and subsp. leprieurii from northern Angola and north-western Zambia through the DR Congo west to Senegal, in lowland rainforest, savanna woodland and often in periodically flooded riverine forest and marshes up to 3,937 feet. Flora Zambesiaca, which PIER quotes, gives 0 to 5,577.4 feet in its region, in riverine and coastal forest, miombo woodland and submontane grassland, often in rocky places. GRIN Taxonomy accepts these two subspecies; GBIF also accepts a third, subsp. graniticola, described by J.E. Burrows in 2003.

•

WCVP records it as introduced only in Trinidad and Tobago. PIER records a 1997 herbarium specimen of subsp. leprieurii from Oahu in Hawaii and lists that subspecies as cultivated only in Singapore. Its 2007 weed risk assessment for Hawaii and the Pacific scored it 1, an "Evaluate" result that calls for further screening rather than a verdict, and found no evidence that it has naturalised beyond its native range. The same assessment notes that birds eat the figs and spread the seed, that it has been photographed growing high up in cracks in buildings, most likely from seed dropped there, that it needs specialist fig wasps for pollination, that it has been introduced to Florida, and that two related figs, Ficus altissima and Ficus thonningii, are on Florida's noxious weed list.

•

Size: Figweb, after Berg and Wiebes (1992), and Flora Zambesiaca both describe a shrub or tree up to 98 feet tall, the height used here. Neither gives the width of the crown, so this record assumes a crown about as wide as the tree is tall, with spacing to match. In a pot or as a bonsai it stays far smaller.

Plant this, not that

Better fit for this place

For Chicago, IL, these are replacement suggestions: similar plants with a stronger hardiness fit now and/or in 2050.

Acer ginnala

Amur maple

Amur maple (Acer ginnala, accepted by Kew's Plants of the World Online as Acer tataricum subsp. ginnala) is a small, fast-growing deciduous tree or large multi-stemmed shrub from northeastern Asia - the Russian Far East, northeastern China, and Korea. At 15 to 20 feet it fits where a full-size maple cannot, and it earns that place with three seasons of interest: fragrant greenish-yellow flowers in spring, which is an unusual scent for a maple and an early nectar source for bees; small glossy three-lobed leaves through summer; and reliable, often brilliant red-to-orange fall color that arrives early. It is also one of the hardiest maples, tolerant of cold, wind, dry soil, and a wide range of pH. The honest catch, and it is a serious one for North American gardeners, is that it self-sows prolifically and has escaped cultivation to become invasive across parts of the US Midwest and Northeast, where its shade-tolerant seedlings crowd native shrubs and understory trees in open woods, savannas, and prairies. Several states list it as invasive or a noxious weed. Check your local invasive-species list before planting, and be prepared to remove seedlings if you do.

Tree

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Taxus baccata

English Yew

English yew (Taxus baccata) is a slow-growing, exceptionally long-lived evergreen conifer native across Europe (except Iceland), the Caucasus, Turkey eastward to northern Iran, and Morocco and Algeria in North Africa, valued for centuries as the definitive topiary and formal hedge tree. Its dense, dark-green needle foliage tolerates extreme shade and hard clipping, making it the premier structural plant for sculptured gardens. The honest catch is severe toxicity: nearly every part of the plant - needles, bark, seeds - contains cardiotoxic taxine alkaloids with no antidote, posing a lethal risk to humans, livestock, horses, and dogs; only the red fleshy aril is non-toxic, though the enclosed seed is deadly.

Tree

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Similar plants

Browse lateral options with similar roles, light needs, size, or native-range overlap; these are not filtered for a better climate fit.

Acer ginnala

Amur maple

Amur maple (Acer ginnala, accepted by Kew's Plants of the World Online as Acer tataricum subsp. ginnala) is a small, fast-growing deciduous tree or large multi-stemmed shrub from northeastern Asia - the Russian Far East, northeastern China, and Korea. At 15 to 20 feet it fits where a full-size maple cannot, and it earns that place with three seasons of interest: fragrant greenish-yellow flowers in spring, which is an unusual scent for a maple and an early nectar source for bees; small glossy three-lobed leaves through summer; and reliable, often brilliant red-to-orange fall color that arrives early. It is also one of the hardiest maples, tolerant of cold, wind, dry soil, and a wide range of pH. The honest catch, and it is a serious one for North American gardeners, is that it self-sows prolifically and has escaped cultivation to become invasive across parts of the US Midwest and Northeast, where its shade-tolerant seedlings crowd native shrubs and understory trees in open woods, savannas, and prairies. Several states list it as invasive or a noxious weed. Check your local invasive-species list before planting, and be prepared to remove seedlings if you do.

Tree

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Podocarpus macrophyllus

Buddhist Pine

Buddhist pine (Podocarpus macrophyllus) is a slow-growing evergreen conifer native to southern Japan, southern and eastern China, Taiwan, and northern Myanmar, long prized in East Asian gardens and feng shui traditions. In mild climates it makes a handsome, dense column of strap-like dark-green foliage suitable for hedging, topiary, or a statement specimen; it also tolerates container culture well. The honest catch is its frost-tenderness: plants are reliable only from zone 7b (about 10°F) southward, and a late cold snap in zone 7 can kill established specimens to the ground. Layered on that is its pace - growth is genuinely slow, so a screening hedge planted today may take 15-20 years to reach useful height.

Tree

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Cordyline australis is a dramatic, palm-like evergreen tree native to New Zealand, where it ranges from North Cape to the southern South Island. In warm-temperate gardens (USDA zones 8-11) it makes an unmistakable structural focal point with its stout trunk, arching sword-leaf crown, and spectacular fragrant flower panicles in late spring. The honest catch is its scale and tenderness: it can exceed 33 feet in mild climates, its fibrous roots are expansive and difficult to remove, a single hard frost below about 23°F can kill or badly damage an established specimen, and the saponin-bearing foliage is toxic to cats and dogs - making it a gamble outside sheltered coastal or urban sites in colder zone-8 gardens.

Tree

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

A banyan fig from tropical Asia and the western Pacific, grown across most of the world as an indoor tree and a bonsai for its small, leathery, glossy leaves, smooth gray bark and thin hanging aerial roots. Outdoors it is a different plant, and an invasive one: a spreading tree to about 50 feet whose aerial roots thicken into extra trunks and whose roots break pavement. Where its pollinating wasp has arrived, birds drop the seeds into walls, paving cracks and other trees, which the seedlings then strangle. The Florida Invasive Species Council lists it as a Category I invasive in central and south Florida, it is naturalized in Hawaii, and it now spreads on its own in southern California. Grow it indoors except in USDA zones 9 and warmer, and even there keep it in a pot. The ASPCA lists the figs (Ficus) as toxic to dogs, cats and horses.

Tree

Full sun / Part shade

English yew (Taxus baccata) is a slow-growing, exceptionally long-lived evergreen conifer native across Europe (except Iceland), the Caucasus, Turkey eastward to northern Iran, and Morocco and Algeria in North Africa, valued for centuries as the definitive topiary and formal hedge tree. Its dense, dark-green needle foliage tolerates extreme shade and hard clipping, making it the premier structural plant for sculptured gardens. The honest catch is severe toxicity: nearly every part of the plant - needles, bark, seeds - contains cardiotoxic taxine alkaloids with no antidote, posing a lethal risk to humans, livestock, horses, and dogs; only the red fleshy aril is non-toxic, though the enclosed seed is deadly.

Tree

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Jelly palm, also sold as pindo palm, is the cold-hardy feather palm of southern Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul) and Uruguay, and one of the hardiest feather-leaved palms in cultivation. For decades it was treated as Butia capitata, and nurseries and several references still sell and describe this palm as Butia capitata, although Kew's WCVP accepts Butia odorata and the true B. capitata is a more tropical, less hardy palm that is rare in gardens. It is a slow-growing, single-stemmed palm of 15 to 20 feet with a stout trunk knobbed by persistent leaf bases and a crown of long, arching, strongly recurved blue-green to gray-green leaves whose stalks are edged with sharp teeth. Large sprays of small, fruity-scented cream to yellowish flowers are followed by clusters of edible yellow to orange fruit about 1 inch across, sweet and fibrous around a hard stone and traditionally made into jelly or wine. UF/IFAS rates it hardy to about 10°F, and notes that it survives in south Florida but grows much better in cooler, less humid climates. It is not documented as invasive, though Wikipedia records occasional naturalized populations in the southeastern United States.

Tree

Full sun / Part shade

Educator packet

Plant packet

Natal fig educator packet

An evergreen African fig grown outside frost-free climates as a houseplant and, above all, as a bonsai: Wikipedia says it is a popular bonsai because it grows fast and is robust. In the wild it is a shrub or tree up to 98 feet tall that can start life as an epiphyte on another tree, Figweb says, with leathery, oblong to obovate leaves 1 to 3.9 inches long and small round figs in pairs at the leaf bases that ripen reddish orange or yellow, according to Flora Zambesiaca. It grows wild across tropical Africa, from Senegal east to Sudan and Kenya and south to KwaZulu-Natal. No source rates its cold hardiness, so this record keeps it indoors except in USDA zones 11 and warmer. NC State Extension says fig latex can irritate skin, and the ASPCA lists weeping fig, the closest fig it covers, as toxic to dogs, cats and horses. In Uganda its inner bark is beaten into barkcloth, a craft on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage.

Scientific name

Ficus natalensis

Plant type

tree

Hardiness

11a-12b

Light

full-sun, part-shade

Moisture

moderate

Spacing

98.4 ft