Fig Tree Spacing: Finding the Sweet Spot for Your Figs

So, you’ve got your first fig tree, and you want to make sure that wherever you plant it is not going to cause a problem in the future.

For many, this means asking: Will it be too close to something else? Whether that's your house, another fig tree, or another fruit tree. Will it grow into my walkway? And, how big is a fig tree actually going to get? Can I maintain it at a smaller size? Do I need a dwarf fig tree? Some people just want to ensure it gets enough sunlight, or you may be a commercial fig grower with very specific requirements. These are all the kinds of questions we're going to answer in today’s article.

The Challenge of Generalizing Spacing

For most growers, spacing fig trees 6-10 feet apart is adequate, but a one-size-fits-all answer regarding spacing fig trees is exactly what it sounds like: a generalization. The truth largely depends on where you live and what size fig tree you’re aiming for. I don’t understand why every nursery catalog, plant tag, or website gives some arbitrary number that’s never specific, accurate, or helpful.

• Fast Growing Trees says they have a 15-30 feet mature height and width.

• TyTy Nursery says the same variety will mature at 8-10 feet.

• Four Winds Growers says 10-20 feet at maturity.

• Nature Hills says 10-15 feet high and 12-15 feet wide.

Most sources of fig trees also claim that fig trees need 100 chill hours. They don’t, and it’s an easy way to see evidence of regurgitated and incorrect information about fig trees. This is the case all over the internet regarding fig trees, which is one of the many reasons why I created this blog.

Related: 20 Facts About Figs & Fig Trees You Probably Didn't Know

The truth is, in the right conditions, and over many years, most fig varieties can reach 40 ft tall and wide. Even here in less-than-ideal growing conditions, I have fig trees that would have reached 20 feet tall in 2025 without intervening, but that doesn’t mean you need to worry about having a huge fig tree someday. ALL fig trees can be easily maintained at 6x6 feet tall and wide (I’ll cover this further down in the article). You decide the size of your fig tree, which inevitably determines the spacing.

First, figure out your goal. Here’s a handy chart to help you decide:

Now that you’ve figured out the basics, let’s move on through the article, where you’ll learn what you need to know to help refine the spacing distance further:

Spacing Rules to Live By

1. If you live in USDA growing zone 6B or lower, it's actually rather difficult to have a large fig tree. The typical spacing rules do not apply in these areas. Temperatures below zero or even five degrees Fahrenheit are enough to cause significant winter damage. This means the structure of your fig tree that may take years to build has to restart every 3-5 years. Apply winter protection annually, and that’s a different story.

2. Interestingly, the more you prune your fig tree, the more it grows the following year. And winter damage is really no different than pruning your fig tree; a fig tree can't tell the difference.

3. Additionally, the higher your growing zone, usually, the longer your growing season, producing more annual growth than lower growing zones.

Let’s say you have an established fig tree growing in USDA zone 6 or lower that was severely damaged by the cold; it would resprout in the spring and grow four to ten feet in one season, depending on the severity of the damage.

Here, in the Philadelphia area, if my fig trees get through the winter with no damage, they may only grow about one to three feet every year. That’s much more manageable.

Therefore, the size of your fig tree and its spacing are largely determined by:

• Your environmental conditions (your growing zone).

• The techniques you use (pruning).

• The variety you choose.

4. If your fig tree is growing into the wrong place, remember that you can always remove whatever is giving you problems. Pruning fig trees doesn’t harm them, although the ideal time is during dormancy.

   
   

Planting Near Buildings

One of the things people love to mention online is the myth of fig trees having invasive roots. The issue is that there are over 850 species of Ficus. Some species do have extremely invasive roots that could ruin a foundation. But Ficus carica, the common fig tree we all know and love, produces mostly small, fibrous roots in the top foot of the soil.

Without worrying about your foundation, you can plant fig trees right up against any structure you choose. Many fig growers do this in colder climates because of thermodynamic heating, which provides a nice microclimate to keep them warmer. I’ve even seen countless 20-foot-tall trees right up against homes without any issues. You won’t believe how many old Italian guys love to brag about picking fruit from their second-story windows.

You can also reference hundreds of years of evidence from fig tree espaliers, which are trees trained as an edible fruiting wall to grow flat against a structure or trellis.

Related: Planting Fig Trees: A Masterclass

Sidewalks

While Ficus carica roots are generally not invasive like some other Ficus species, they can still cause issues over many years if planted too close to a sidewalk. Give them about four to six feet away from sidewalks.

Underground Pipes

You should also be careful around old, potentially damaged underground pipes near the surface. Fig trees have very fibrous root systems that will try to go out and find nutrients and water. They can certainly, at some point, get inside a pipe and cause problems.

Related: Planting a Fig Tree in the Garden | How to Plant a Fig Tree

High-Density Plantings

I originally got the idea for planting fig trees closely from an Italian fig grower, Vladimiro Rocco. Out of necessity and curiosity, I adopted an even closer spacing (two feet apart) to trial many fig varieties on my small property. The result was highly beneficial for nursery production, but difficult for fruit production. There are also several other negatives to close spacing, like lower fruit set, ease of harvesting, protecting the fruits (bagging), and a higher incidence of fig rust.

Related: Fight the Fungus: How to Recognize and Treat Fig Rust

However, the biggest challenge with close spacing is adequate sunlight. Some trees can be shaded out and will have difficulty getting established or even fruiting each year. Sunlight is the most critical factor for fruit set. 

Related: Fig Tree Light Requirements | Maximizing Sunlight to Form Figs & to Produce MORE

A common concern: competition for nutrients and water. If you provide good compost, correct nutrient deficiencies, apply mulch, and irrigate regularly, fig trees establish very quickly, making these issues much less of a concern.

Fig Tree Hedges

One of the major advantages of creating a fig tree hedge is to create an edible living wall. Put in the time and careful planning, and you can go one step further and create a beautiful Belgian Fence.

Regarding spacing fig trees, some of you may be wondering about mowing the lawn. If you space your fig trees 20 feet apart, that leaves a lot of space in between for the lawn mower. 

Instead, you could space them at a four-foot spacing (this is the closest spacing I can recommend for the average grower) within the row to achieve a hedge, leaving little room in between each fig tree for grass and competing weeds. In this instance, mowing would only be necessary between the rows.

Simply use a heavy application of mulch (woodchips are an affordable and sometimes free resource that fig trees love), plant a wide variety of companion plants to improve the soil, or use landscape fabric to suppress weeds and grass.

The Myth of Dwarf Fig Trees

What about dwarf fig trees? Nurseries claim that their dwarf fig trees stay at a small, manageable size.

According to Logee’s, the Fignomenal variety will grow to a mature size of 2+ feet, Territorial Seed mentions 20-28 inches, and Burpee states 3-5 feet.

My Fignomenal tree is already 5 ft tall after the second year of planting. However, I purposely pruned it in a way to encourage growth. More on that in the next section.

One Green World, Raintree Nursery, & Wilson Bros Gardens all state that Little Ruby will grow to 4-6 feet.

These nurseries actually got it right. My Little Ruby tree has not surpassed 5 feet, even after 6-7 growing seasons growing in the ground with no to minimal pruning.

However, even a truly dwarf fig variety like Little Ruby can be encouraged to grow significantly larger from excessive winter damage or the wrong kind of pruning. I’ve seen two in-person hunting for new fig varieties in the Philadelphia area. Both are 10-12 feet in height. After close inspection of the canopy, you can see how it was pruned to encourage more growth. Pruning techniques and environmental conditions are ultimately more important than variety in determining a fig tree's final size.

Related: Fig Tree Size Matters: The Beauty of Dwarf Fig Trees & Taming the Growth of any Fig Tree

Maintaining Fig Trees at a Manageable Size

So as I said earlier in the article, every fig tree, no matter the variety, can be maintained at a six-by-six-foot size, but you have to learn how to prune. While dwarf fig trees help, you’re not limited to a handful of varieties if you want a smaller tree. 

Keep in mind that unless a fig tree is old and losing vigor, fig trees do not require pruning to be annually productive. Only if you want to keep them smaller will they need pruning. The problem is that most growers take on the challenge, prune their fig tree incorrectly, and the following year it grows to a size even larger than it was previously.

Related: What Happens If You Don’t Prune a Fig Tree?

Here’s the key:

Depending on how you prune your fig tree causes it to respond in very different ways.

Heading cuts: These are pruning cuts that shorten the branches and are a great way to encourage lots of growth the following year. Similar to light pruning or hard pruning, if you remove ⅓ or ⅔ of the growth from last year, the amount of new growth next year will be 3-6 feet, whereas, if you didn’t prune your fig tree and it didn’t take winter damage, it may only produce 1-3 feet of new growth the following year.

Some growers get a bit more extreme with their pruning without realizing it and prune away not just the new growth from that season, but also cut into older wood. Heading cuts are not limited to shortening the laterals, fruiting branches, or the growth from the current season. You can shorten the scaffolds and trunks of a fig tree. Generally, the lower you prune a fig tree back, the stronger the growth response will be the following season.

This kind of pruning is especially useful if you want a larger fig tree, your fig tree is old and needs to be revitalized, or if you want to set up the structure of your tree’s canopy quickly.

Eventually, you’ll need to prune your fig tree. It can’t stay small forever. Even dwarf fig varieties can highly benefit from pruning.

Therefore, I recommend a different style of pruning called thinning cuts. This is when you thin a fig tree’s canopy by removing an entire branch at its lowest point, leaving nothing behind (e.g., taking out an entire trunk, scaffold, or lateral). Heading cuts shorten branches, leaving growth behind. Pollarding is an example of how growers shorten the scaffolds or trunks to reduce their height, unknowingly causing an explosion of growth the following year.

Whereas, thinning cuts allow you to remove older wood like scaffolds or trunks without disrupting a fig tree’s growth habit. 

It sounds like I’m contradicting myself, doesn’t it? As I said earlier in this section, the lower or harder we prune fig trees, the more they want to explode in growth the following season, but that’s only applicable if you’re shortening the branches, leaving growth behind. Similar to other fruit trees, this can create water shoots.

Often, a fig tree’s watershoots won’t fruit, and if they do, the fruit will ripen much later than normal and at a lower quality. This growth will want to grow profusely (partly because of the lower energy demand from a delay or lack of fruit set), even into the fall or winter, until frost sends a signal to your fig tree that it’s time to stop. This is due to a change in hormones within plants that is directly affected by pruning.

If you really want to understand pruning plants or the root cause, you need to learn about plant hormones.

Related: The Role of Plant Hormones in Fig Tree Pruning and Fruit Production

Another consequence of the different styles of pruning I’ve mentioned is the stark comparison of the node spacing. Let’s say your fig tree produces 15 leaves in one growing season. A fig tree where heading cuts were performed may have a 2-3 inch node spacing between every leaf. Multiply 15 by 3, that’s 60 inches or 5 feet of new growth. A fig tree where thinning cuts were performed may have a 1-inch node spacing, equalling 15 inches of new growth. Not only that, but fig trees with this style of pruning will stop growing into the late fall, preparing themselves better for winter. See the difference?

The trick is to find a balance. Thinning cuts are the way to go, even if they seem drastic. If you want a more manageable fig tree, your goal should be to preserve the top 3rd of the current season’s growth. As much of it as possible. This way, your fig tree will have a much closer node spacing, stop its growth in the fall and winter, and be burned by the energy demand of heavy fruit set. However, that doesn’t mean you should never head back the laterals.

In fact, in the next section, I’ll be talking about low cordon espaliers, a training technique commercial growers commonly use, where the laterals are cut back to their cordon every single season.

Commercial Growers: The Low Cordon Espalier or Stepover Fig

You may not have known that fig trees can be grown similarly to grape vines as a cordon. Specifically, it’s advantageous to keep them low with a main trunk a foot high with 1-4 cordons branching off to maximize sunlight and space. This is particularly useful for commercial growers for its ease of management and larger fruit size.

When I get messages from commercial growers about this training method, the first question is almost always spacing.

I recommend at least a six-foot spacing for espaliers, which allows for three-foot cordons on either side within the row. Some growers select to space them eight to twelve feet apart. The length and height of your greenhouse are important factors to consider. For example, the length of the rows might be better divisible by eight or ten, or you might benefit from a closer spacing if the height of the greenhouse is too low.

The wider the spacing, the less competition for water, potentially leading to larger fruits. There is also something to be said about a wider canopy with arms six feet in length vs. three feet.

The most important part when growing low cordons is to appropriately space the laterals that come off the main cordon, which should be spaced anywhere from eight to sixteen inches apart. This ensures each lateral has enough sunlight to produce high-quality fruit.

Related: Starting a Commercial Fig Tree Orchard in Humid & Cold Climates | What to Look Out For