AusBonsai

Well done on your pruning. Not many would be as bold but that's just what was needed.
Don't worry about the original tree. It will sprout whether you have it covered with a bag or not. It is the cuttings with no roots that need the protection.
Leave the cuttings covered night and day until there is definite growth on top then uncover for longer periods each day.
Figs will grow despite what you do to them.

Just an update on the tree:
Almost 2 months since I first pruned it. Should I do another pruning early in autumn as the weather is still quite hot?

As for the two cuttings, unfortunately they both died. I had them covered with plastic bottle halves, and the soil was always moist. I also had them in complete shade in our alfresco, maybe I should've had them indoors?

I would fertilise and just let it grow for now. Even if your going for shohin size. Once the branches mature a bit more lignify you could wire, but would not do too early in case it breaks off from trunk.
As for cuttings next time try placing them straight into the ground in a spot with a small amount of morning sun -mature cuttings. Keep the soil moist. This seems to work for me.

Hey matlea,

We had several periods where the temperature was 40 degrees or just under this summer. Do your cuttings survive that, even in the shade?

And what type of fertilizer do you recommend for a ficus? Cheers.

Ficus can't read so they don't seem to care what fertiliser they get as long as they get something. Use any plant fertiliser at the rates on the packet. Figs are hungry. One of our members down here would pile on the dynamic lifter pellets up to 1cm thick on top of the pot and his trees thrived but that's just for ficus. That much might not be good for some other species. DL can be a bit smelly so a liquid fert might be more suitable - recommended strength every week or 2 while the tree is growing and a bit less often if it slows down over winter.

Agree with shibui re fertiliser.
The cuttings I did were about 5mm thick and 15 - 20cm long with just a few leaves left on top. I do have some bark mulch in the garden beds so that would have assisted with moisture retention in the ground. Gave a light water every time I watered my plants.... and survived the hot days we have had. I think ...? I made the cuttings early spring which may have also given them a chance before the hottest part of summer.

I have found ficus cuttings very easy to root with a very high success rate. If it is a pencil thick cutting I don't even use rooting hormone. Just cut it off, leave 3 or 4 leaves on the end and put it in potting mix under the back verandah and water when the bottom of the pot is dry when lifted. A few weeks ago I did one 15mm thick when we had a heatwave of 40 degrees + in Adelaide and that has rooted and is already showing new growth

Ah, I see. My cuttings were only about 2-3mm thick, so they're probably less likely to succeed.

Another option is to stand them in a jar of water until roots grow and then transplant into potting mix. This works easily but the roots are very soft and can get damaged when transplanting

I find most fig cuttings I make take root with little care. Some don’t. There’s always heaps when you trim a fig. Nowadays I only put in larger cuttings with interesting shapes. I usually cut vertically at least into four at the base, sometimes more with larger cuttings. The majority take. If they don’t there is always more.

Update on how the tree has grown over the winter months:

Didn't do much after that Jan pruning, just watered and fertilized it with DL once in a while. I did pull it inside for ~2week period when there was really frosty mornings here, but otherwise it sat outside for most of winter.

Noticed that the bottom left branch got quickly overtaken by all the new shoots. Is it time to prune it all back again?

Going back to what I hope the tree would look like: 30-35cm tall, ~8cm thick trunk, ~15cm wide root flare, I assume I should still only focus on the base and trunk.

If it were mine I would let one leader grow freely to thicken the lower trunk and get some taper, then cut back and repeat. Just watch out for multiple branches coming from the same spot or too close together. It's looking healthy. Feed feed feed.

So you would recommend I prune everything except 1 branch on top? Would you still leave the very bottom branch?

When would you bother with root pruning, repotting or defoliating etc?

No, keep most of the branches as more branches and foliage will mean faster growth and thickening. Typically remove branches on the inner trunk bends - keeping branches on the outer bends or on straighter sections of trunk, and avoid branches opposite each other- bar branches. I would cut off the second lowest on the left (first marked with red) which is on an inner bend - keep the lowest as this will help with thickening the base of the trunk. The branches on the right look to be a bit close together, maybe reduce second lowest on right ( second marked with red) it's a bit hard to see exactly based on the photos but I hope this makes sense.
Down the track, once you are happy with trunk/ branch thickness sacrifice branches can be removed, or branches cut back to a point where you want them to divide into more branches.
Assuming you are wanting to grow and thicken I wouldn't be too worried about defoliation at this point in time.
Have you done any root work when last potted up? Generally cut downward growing roots and arrange / spread out others. Even place something under the tree like a tile/ plastic plate etc to force horizontal roots. Hope this helps.

I haven't done any root work since I last worked on it in Jan. I cut the root 'bulb' in half like dansai suggested earlier in this thread (leaving no roots, as all the roots it had were on the bottom half of that 'bulb') and potted it up. It's been growing in this pot since.