Thoughts on pruning Fig trees. These ones have grown pretty large and I've given myself the task of pruning them. Partly I want to reduce their height somewhat, also to open up the structure by removing tangled and crossing branches. 

 The A-frame ladder and an extending pole gives me just about the reach I need. It's not easy though, I'm having to stand on the highest point of the 'A' using the pole fully extended. I would probably lean an extending ladder into a sturdier tree but safety first in this case. 

 The wood is soft and flexible. That means I can use the lopping attachment on the pole to cut through quite thick branches (about 3/4 inch/20mm). The saw attachment is not proving as useful as I had hoped on the more substantial limbs. Their flexibility makes it hard to get good purchase with the blade. As I move it in a sawing motion the whole branch is apt to flail about.

 Where I can use a handheld pruning saw the softness of the wood makes for easy cutting and the long handled loppers bite through branches a bit thicker than I can manage with the pole. However these are only an option on lower branches I can stretch to from the ladder.

 An added difficulty is that cut branches are hard to extract from the surrounding tangle. Also I'm having to move the ladder a lot to get myself in the optimum position to use one or other of the tools at my disposal. And I keep getting pelted with hard unripened figs when the tree shakes!