2 rare Ficus from friend. Bucket list plants.

Lucky you indeed! They look really healthy.

Beautiful leaves on both. Obviously your lucky day!

They do look very lush and green, Stan. Love the big leaves too, on both plants. I’ll keep my fingers crossed you end up with billiard ball figs!

I am so pleased for you Stan they look very healthy I hope they grow well for you.

Thank you all! Klahanie! Nice to see you! Andy and not long ago Penney returned. I always like for my internet friends to keep in touch.
I'm not meeting a lot of people out there,who get why I would be thrilled over fig trees😁.

You wont kill it cutting it back as hard and far as you want. Its overall just not the kind of tree that can take that every year. If its too large,you can cut far back initially.
Here,its near a weed..naturalizes although the flowers are always paler,less, then the nursery cultivars.
They have newer cultivars that have almost red blooms and really are near Royal Poinciana in showiness. Always improving are the growers.

The red cultivar is called 'Rosea' and the dark leafed 'Chocolate' I hear never makes pods. But it does need warm summers overall to grow and flower. Rosea is very hardy,but it too makes pods.

Stan,

Ficus dammaropsis is the Dinner plate fig. It’s not easy to find and is usually very expensive. There are some big trees here in San Diego. It’s a pretty hardy fig.

I grew a beautiful Ficus auriculata for years in Hayward, it died in the horrible 1990 freeze. I purchased it at Berkeley Horticulture in 1985. Ficus auriculata can grow pretty tall, 35 ft

Here's hoping for yet another frost free year Andy. Both will be container plants for awhile. If I do plant them,I will have to make gopher guards in the hole. Even extend above ground a few inches. My backyard might be decent..trim some branches overhead. I don't think at my age I have to worry about either getting out of hand.. a few prunings would be enough.

When you do plant the F. auriculata in the ground, remember it’s briefly deciduous in spring.

The most beautiful F. auriculata I’ve ever seen was in the ground in the Oakland Hills. Unfortunately, it was killed in the huge Oakland Firestorm of October 1991.

There’s a large 25 to 30 ft Ficus auriculata in the Botanical Building in Balboa Park. It produces a lot of fruit.

It's nice to see photos of my plants in sun. The last three days have been tinted skies..Like those old timey photos people do dressed in 1870's cowboy and belle outfits tinted to a burnt sienna?
Yesterday it was dark at 1 o'clock..like the sun had hardly even risen yet. Car headlights came on most of the day if not all day.
I'm in no danger at all..just the orange skies over the bay area were first I've ever seen.
Oh,and ash has fallen..like those horror movies?..constantly. At night cameras that see in the dark it makes them look like snowflakes..so unusual.