Dear Colleagues,
Within a week one of my potted Fig trees started looking sad.
Hopefully on pictures alone someone can diagnose & provide suggestions
Haven’t watered in a week
Tree next to it look healthy
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They need water
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Presuming they weren’t inside (in which case it’s sun shock) they need water
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Not just water, they need a good soaking. The media gets dry and becomes hydrophobic. The water runs right through and doesn’t fully wet up. Soak it in a big bucket or run water on it slowly for at least several hours. Then water more often. It takes a huge pot and very low water use to go a week between waterings.
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One of the biggest misconceptions about figs is that it’s a desert plant. Not! It needs consistent water. Not necessarily a lot, but you can’t let it dry out.
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I want to thank everyone for their responses, here. I thought I was over watering it.
So I hit it with plenty of compost and I watered it on Sunday
All the leaves have fallen off because they dried out
Yes, it is outdoors since it’s here in West Los Angeles, California.
I have five other fig trees in a similar container right next to each other, and I noticed another one was slowly developing similar leaves, so I’ll make it a point of watering more often. Not so much heavy watering in one dosage, but it appears the consensus is just water more times throughout the week in slower, dosages, if I understood other folks comments correctly
The Man, who sold me these trees when they were a little little itty bitty things over two years ago mentioned it might be a root infection
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I have my figs on a drip irrigation system and they get watered 3x a week. Some of them need more than this, particularly the few in grow bags.
As someone mentioned if the soil has become hydrophobic which happens often in potted plants you’re going to need to soak them. But in order to do that you need them to sit in a reservoir for a few hours at least to allow the soil to become rehydrated. Likely the water is just draining out and the soil is still dry after being watered. I have a few bins to rehydrate any pots that seem to have that happen to them. It’s easy to tell when you grab a handful of soil from the top if it’s super dry like sand it’s likely become hydrophobic. Anyhow good luck 
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A final note. If your potting mix drains and your pot has drainage holes, it is impossible to overwater figs. Less water may be better for the water bill; and less water (but still consistent) during ripening will help fruit quality. But you should not waste a calorie worrying about too much water.
On the other hand, too little water will cause leaves to shrivel and drop. Fruit will drop too.
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I soak my figs until they’re flooded in the container every few days this time of year, unless we get a good rain
in the heat of summer I flood them every other day.
if they dry out and drop leaves I’ll flood them in a tray so they sit in the runoff for a few hours at least, sometimes overnight, to get that dirt to start drinking again. one of my younger CH figs, I forgot about it for like two weeks, it was in a sunny corner and fried and dried. I soaked it two days in a row when I found it. every last leaf fell dead but it’s now starting to grow back buds so it’ll be ok.
I suspect you have dry air like I do, high desert? just desert. they’ll want deep regular watering, don’t let them get bone dry. I use a little straw or chip on top in the pots to keep it from drying out completely, though they have really good draining containers.
I’m really almost 100% humidity year round but May-September I water my containers almost daily
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Wow…I really need to keep watering.
I removed the remaining leaves that didn’t fall off… literally every leave shriveled & fell
I use Gary’s potted soil
I’m using this compost to reguvinate with plenty of water
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