I would love to grow figs, they're beautiful, ancient, mysterious, delicious. But I have limited space.

• I'm considering planting 2 fig trees and training them as espaliers.
• I've read that to do so I should contain the roots somehow. Is this really needed?
• They would need to stay pretty close to the fence to avoid encroaching on my patio table
• Would keeping the trees confined near the wall require such severe and frequent pruning as to prevent them from fruiting?
• I'm in San Pedro, CA in zone 10b, cliimate dominated by coastal breeze. No frost ever, but a few very hot summer days.
• If it's not a terrible idea, what varieties would be best?

Welcome to the forum!  Definitely don't contain the roots unless you want Bonsai.  Search for Japanese step over method and adjust it for your situation.  You won't have to keep it near the ground because you don't get frost. You could start it along the ground but also let scaffolds grow straight up every foot or so and grow fruiting branches from the vertical scaffolds.  You can grow it straight up the walls for 10 feet or so then have it come out horizontally for shade if you want.   You could prune it to make a basketball backstop and hoop if you want.  You could write your name in permanent scaffold branches.  Let your imagination go wild  :)

Visit some fig growers and taste their fruit to see what you like best and grow those.  Good luck keeping it down to 2 varieties, though.

Hi thornfish,
Welcome to the forum.
What is the target total size for the trees ?
If you want them under 2m/7', then yes, you need to constraint their roots.
If you want them higher then let them roots run free.
I'm using 80liters/20' containers ( trashcans ) on some and the trees stay smaller with closer inter-nodes spaces. So definitively, handy BUT there is a huge drawback :
You'll need to water them or they will fry. The soil in the container won't be able to wick moisture from the surrounding dirt so a drip system is a must have especially
in your hot climate - at least a good watering schedule is needed to keep the trees alive and in production.

For your wall ... is it strong ? Because the roots of the trees will test the strength of the wall and try to pass through ... which leads you to cracks ...

In your climate, you could use the espalier method or the "total die-back every 4 years" method ...
I would give it a try and see what comes out of that !