Fig

You can cut them back fairly hard, but be prepared, they do get big quite fast.
And hard pruning means pretty much no fruit.

 

When you said planting in a pit on the patio I assumed it was free root run.

 

Why not try propagating another tree by air layering it?

But, you'd have to wait until next spring when the tree is just about to become active again.

 

I know this is an old post sorry, but my brown turkey fig is grown in a large pot, left outside and fed during the growing season - it only has leaves on the new growth of each year, leaving me with lots of bare stems with a group of leaves on the end of each stem. Is this normal?

 

Thanks @Loofah . It was originally potted into MPC from Aldi, then over the last few years it gets topped up with our own back yard made compost, and has a mulch of bark on the top few inches too. I dont have any "soil" soil, if that makes sense? All my back garden is concrete and tarmac with all kinds of pots crammed into it, no soil on the ground at all (hence the name petals..paving slabs!) One day I might win the lottery and move to a house with a field for a garden!

 

With figs I always try to pinch out the growing point after 4 leaves have formed, they will grow leggy if you let them.
It encourages side shooting at the same time as encouraging fruiting.
If it is too leggy, the only real option is to cut the stems back by half in winter, but this will delay fruiting.
Not tried notching but it might work to give you side shoots lower down without removing top growth.
Scoring and Notching: A Method in Tree Training - Home Orchard Society