Lamenting the need to get rid of a good looking plant doesn't equal a suggestion to keep it. The Ficus could be hard-trimmed ruthlessly, but a human would resent that a plant had turned them into a slave ... when it's supposed to be the other way around. I agree with catkim that a different tree would be a better choice, all things considered. "I assume that a walkway the visually greets guests from the sidewalk would appear more welcoming than one that leads from the driveway... Do you think that I'm incorrect in this assumption?" edit: Oops ... I meant, in a word YES! (to the question about the assumption.) You should create a walk that looks like it makes the best sense for the overall property ... and a walk directly to the city sidewalk is not necessarily more welcoming. You might not want to duplicate what exists a mere few feet away. Much of it depends on the geometry of how a walk would be laid out, it's width, materials and/or finishes. I'm not saying a separate walk directly to the city walk would look bad, but that it might not be an improvement over one that ties to the drive. It depends on all the factors involved. You might explore similar houses in the neighborhood to see if others have come up with successful variations. This post was edited by Yardvaark on Sun, Oct 27, 13 at 12:25

How about cork oak? (if you're able to find it) As far as desert trees, I think you're thinking of Palo Verde. I think it would meet all your needs. If you were willing to have fruit, a fig tree could be another option, but they can get messy if you don't harvest all the fruit before it falls to the ground (unless you got a male fig tree). Pakistan mulberry might be another option, this variety is more tolerant to heat, and mulberry trees have beautiful shade leaf foliage, but again, if you don't pick all those mulberries it can be messy. Last one to mention is a "California pepper tree" (actually originates from Peru). It's a medium-fast grower and is fairly drought tolerant. But a word of caution, if you do supply it with a lot of water for many years and it does grow big, but then it goes years without any water at all, it will suffer drought stress and become susceptible to disease. Only the bush-level trees that haven't grown to a huge size are truly fully drought tolerant. They can drop a lot of leaves and little red berries, so can be a bit messy. Pepper trees also put out a lot of surface roots, so it's unlikely you're going to plant anything below it. Before you plant one, I'd rub the leaves across the top of your hand because there are a small number of people who have a contact allergy to the leaves. They can be a beautiful medium small tree.

I would definitely want a closeup of the leaves in your hand before going any farther than, “it appears to be a tree.”

And for removal of invasives (which this isn’t), I use large adjustable pliers to pull ones that are smaller. The looser the soil, the larger the plant you can pull. For large ones there a few choices: - Get a weed wrench or similar tool to pull midsized plants. https://www.theuprooter.com/tool-features/weed-wrench-alternative/ - Cut to ground level and then revisit each plant about every other week for a couple of seasons to remove all new sprouts so the roots use up all stored energy. This takes both consistency and persistence because if leaves get a chance to form the plant will start making and storing energy again. - Cut to ground level and then paint the cut with a short lived brush strength herbicide. I use this option along with the first because I live on 200 acres and it is my only hope of decreasing my invasives. I like it as the lesser of two evils because it is very targeted to individual plants, and it uses the least possible amount. I do recheck certain invasives even after this treatment once because sometimes buckthorn repsprouts, but IME recutting will kill it.