Plants outside of residential lots won't grow.

I understand that it takes some time for plants to start growing and producing harvestables, but outside of my active residential lot in one of my saves the plants do not grow at all. This includes  lots I spend a lot of time on, such as the science lab, where harvesting plants is sometimes necessary for accomplishing career goals in the scientist career. It is very frustrating for this reason. Even if I cheat the plants to a different state it doesn't actually do anything and they never produce harvestables. It is also very annoying for fulfilling errands in Finchwick where some mushrooms etc can only be harvested from community lots but the plants never actually grow. Is there some way to fix this?