These figs not edible (2024)

Even if you don’t grow edible fruits, it’s likely you’ve grown some sort of ornamental fig. They range from creeping vines to majestic trees, most of them tropical, in which case they can make majestic houseplants.

Interestingly, the edible fig is among the cold-hardiest of fig species, tolerating temperatures down to about 15 degrees Fahrenheit. It also makes the least satisfactory houseplant of the lot because indoors it grows too leggy, and becomes susceptible to pests such as spider mites.

This fig is also deciduous — that is, it loses its leaves in winter or, if there is no winter in your living room, it might drop some leaves and look as if it would like to drop the rest.

Weeping fig — sometimes merely called ficus, which is the botanical name for the whole fig genus — is among the prettiest figs, whether growing outdoors in tropical splendor or in your home in a large or small pot. The tree’s thin branches bow gracefully earthward and the leaves are small enough so that even a 3-foot-high potted plant can take on the air of a real tree. For added pizazz, these trees are often trained with three stems woven together to form a single braided trunk.

The familiar rubber tree is another fig, but one that is not at all graceful when grown as a houseplant. The leaves usually are spaced far apart along the stems, and are large, leathery and stiff. All this makes for a plant tolerant of the parched air in many homes in winter, and is perhaps in keeping with a “modern,” minimalist decor.

You need to visit some tropical country and see a full-size rubber tree to appreciate the plant in all its splendor. There, it presents a crown of lush greenery, the plant comparable in size to sugar maples. Rubber tree’s large leathery leaves look at home on such a grandiose plant; they look gawky on a houseplant.

Rubber trees are so-called not because they are a commercial source of natural rubber but because of that rubbery look of the leaves. Like many other fig species, the bark will bleed a latex that can be made into rubber, though not with great commercial feasibility. Keep this sap off your skin when you prune or otherwise bruise a fig, because it is irritating.

Less familiar than the weeping fig or rubber tree, at least as a houseplant, is the fiddleleaf fig. It has the same coarse growth form as a rubber tree but its enormous, glossy leaves are shaped like bass fiddles.

Enough with fig trees; what about a bush or vine?

Mistletoe fig is a small, bushy plant that has rounded leaves and readily bears small fruits, unfortunately inedible.

Creeping fig is a charmer, a tropical vine with tiny, heart-shaped leaves. Tiny at first, that is, because once this plant takes hold and matures, it grows exuberantly and develops a different kind of leaf, one that is large and oblong. I’ve seen this vine gobble up whole walls of old conservatories. The way to keep the leaves small and contain the plant’s enthusiasm is to keep it juvenile by lopping it back severely from time to time.