Figs fruit happily (or possibly emotionlessly) with no pruning but, if you do decide to pick up the secateurs, late winter is best, and wear gloves as the sap is irritating. Fruit in windy spots or windy years also tends to be tougher and less luscious. Come to think of it, I have no idea how a fig feels or if they feel at all, but cold winds might frost-off young growth and hot winds shrivel them and wind of any kind breaks the brittle branches. Got a nice bare corner in the Colorbond fence? A concrete or brick wall? It will be perfect for figs, and figs will be reasonably perfect for them, as their roots are mostly well behaved and will not lift your footings nor invade your sewer pipes (unless they are already leaking, in which case you can't blame any tree for taking advantage). A fig is not just a fig Figs fail when you don't give them what Bryan and I accidentally, fortuitously gave ours well-drained soil and as much sun as possible. It's still hot, dry barren and neglected, but the figs fruit anyway. They were all planted on the only bit of sunny orchard left, hot, dry, barren and neglected. Possibly, come to think of it, because I've never told her we have abundant figs here, too.) Not that our trees are any better tended than that first one of Bryan's. (She's still in our lives, a mutual friend now, but sadly no longer brings us fig jam. My husband who was not my husband at the time, but a man to whom gardening meant mowing the lawn, cleaning the gutters and, sometimes, lopping a tree managed to grow one in his backyard, which fruited so prolifically each year that an ex-girl friend would arrive annually to harvest it, leaving him some extremely good fig jam in return. You do not have to be a gardener to grow figs.