u/TRD1GR8

Anyone have any experience with an outdoor fiddle leaf fig tree in Los Angeles?
The apt I’m renting has a massive one growing in the backyard and it doesn’t seem happy. Lots of brown leaves dropping daily. The tree has probably been neglected for many years.

I don’t think I’ve seen one growing outdoors before and I’m kind of shocked that it’s like 50 feet tall!
The tree provides great shade early in the day but it’s very messy and is constantly dropping leaves and shriveled green figs.
I have to pick up after it continuously or the yard fills with dead leaves and figs.

Is this fiddle fig tree a curse?
It’s too massive to prune back. Do I need to figure out how to start watering it?
I’d like to figure out how to help it get healthy if possible.

The large bougainvillea in my backyard is looking fairly bedraggled. I’m hoping to revive it. It seems like an older plant. The plant is pretty sparse in spots but blooming in others. There’s a lot of dead branches and leaves piled up inside if it. I can actually walk underneath it, which is fun. But it looks pretty dead up inside.

I’ve researched online a bit and it seems like this plant needs a large prune back and maybe fertilizer. I think pruning is supposed to happen after a bloom cycle, and I think I’m late for that. Honestly, I don’t understand bougainvillea bloom cycles in LA yet.

Is it ok to prune it back now? Can I save this bougainvillea? I do love these plants when I see them bursting with color.

Also: I moved into this apartment in March - Lincoln Heights neighborhood - with an amazing backyard on a hill. The backyard looks like it’s been neglected for years. I’m slowly working on it.

Skoom Tooom Kooom
Analog collage
2024

Help!
Anyone have insight into what’s happening with my passion fruit vine? It’s been in this pot for about three weeks, and I have been watering it about every other day to help it get to established. (Located in Los Angeles.)
It’s looking pretty sad right now… hoping I can save it.
I had seen online that they were easy to grow so I feel bad that I’m fumbling this, lol.

(I’m new to gardening in SoCal.
I’m used to more seasonal growing from the east coast/ Midwest. I’m having a few struggling plants/ die offs that I might ask for help with.)

You know what… Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) would be a great live action Jervis Tetch aka Mad Hatter…

He has that serious calm with a bubbling undercurrent of manic madness - which would be great for The Hatter…