Jade Plant 1

themanfromvolantis

Hi

I have a few jade plant issues as well as some other plant issues. I thought i would do a post for each to avoid confusion. 

After discovering how easy it was to grow jade plants, i decided i would set up a thriving business, selling them  

I have about a dozen of them now but i have discovered that it's unlucky to sell them. 

I put them in various places to see how they got on. The one that was doing the best was the one that i put in the greenhouse. 

It was almost as big as the mother plant. 

Then disaster, i went to the greenhouse and most of the plant has drooped and lost its colour. 

I assume it got too cold?  

To the plants credit, their is still a small amount at the bottom which is still alive. 

See photos. 

Is this plant saveable ? If so, how? 

Was it the cold ? Or something else? 

treehugger80

I would say it got frosted (they don't like it below 5 degrees really, remember they're mostly water), cut back any wilted growth and you might be lucky and the centre didn't freeze

JennyJ

Probably too cold if your greenhouse isn't heated and you've had some frosty/cold nights, but it could also be too wet.  It looks like the pot is sitting in a puddle of water. They like as much sunlight as possible, which is probably why the one in the greenhouse did well to begin with.

Cut off the dead parts back to just above where the live growth is coming from, move it to a frost-free bright spot, make sure that the compost isn't soaking wet, and let it dry out between waterings, and it should be fine.

As for it being bad luck to sell them, it's up to you whether you believe it.  A****n have them and it doesn't seem to have done them any harm!

themanfromvolantis

Thanks JennyJ. So the drooped bit is dead? 

That's what i feared. I just didn't want to cut it off if there was any chance of revival. 

We have had some frosts yes. It has literally just been watered when the photo was taken but nothing in the greenhouse had any water throughout December and January. It's mostly hostas in there. A couple of gunnera, 2 umbrella palms and my washingtonia robusta. 

Thanks

fidgetbones

They grow huge outside in Western Australia. Here in the UK , they are really only a houseplant that can go outside for the summer. Frost will kill them, or at least badly damage them, as you have found.

wild edges

I bet the person who claimed it was unlucky to sell them was also selling them and didn't want competition Saying that I've given loads away over the years and composted even more.

If you want a thriving business selling them you could consider growing the rarer cultivars as pretty much every plant shop sells the standard crassula ovata now and ebay is flooded with rooted cuttings. Or concentrate on growing specimin plants in pleasing shapes and bonsai style mature plants if you have a few years to invest in growing them. There's a mature jade in my local nursery going for £1000 but it must be over 30 years old to be the size it is. I'd be happy with a tenth of that for my largest one.

but yeah don't let them get cold and remember that they flower over the winter so they're not truely dormant like other succulents at that time.

JennyJ

themanfromvolantis said:

Thanks JennyJ. So the drooped bit is dead? 

That's what i feared. I just didn't want to cut it off if there was any chance of revival. 

We have had some frosts yes. It has literally just been watered when the photo was taken but nothing in the greenhouse had any water throughout December and January. It's mostly hostas in there. A couple of gunnera, 2 umbrella palms and my washingtonia robusta. 

Thanks

You could leave it a while to see if it revives, but I think the droopy parts look either dead or well on the way to being dead.

themanfromvolantis

Thanks everyone. Hey wild edges, do you have a photo of the jade plant in the nursery? It sounds ace. 

I dont know how old my mother plant is but i would say it must be 10+ years. Possibly more  

I inherited it in 2013 and it was in reasonable condition but in a small pot. 

Now, Mum and i were always at odds with pot sizes. I used to insist on going bigger on everything. My argument being that wild plants have a "pot" as big as planet Earth. 

Since Mum's departure to the garden in the sky i have realised that in some cases, she was right about tight pots. 

However, with the jade plant i think i was right because its 4 times as big as it was. 

Mum was an exceptional gardener and loved to be outside. One of my friends once said "If Ground Force came to her garden, they'd just look around and shrug and say "Job Done"". 

Anyway....i'll post the next topic now. It wouldnt let me earlier coz it thought i was a spammer. 

wild edges

themanfromvolantis said:

Hey wild edges, do you have a photo of the jade plant in the nursery? It sounds ace.

I'm sure I did but I can't find it anywhere. I'm going there on the weekend so I'll get another one.

This is my biggest one, I prune it hard to restrict the height and spread but it's about a metre tall above the pot I suppose and I can't get my hand around the thickest trunk. It's in a plastic pot inside that ceramic outer so the root ball is fairly small. I've had much better success keeping succulents in smaller pots and relying on liquid feeds to keep them healthy. Jades are vigourous growers compared to some succulents though and will fill a bigger pot with roots quite quickly.

themanfromvolantis

Nice one. Thats a cracker isn't it. Surely Mum's not gonna be proven right....again ! Lol

How come there is no "like" button on here? 

Also, it's all very well prohibiting me from starting a second topic for 10 mins after the first one. I can understand why that's in place. 

But (and despite the irritating pop up every 30 seconds, telling me that what i've typed has been saved to drafts) i can't find anywhere with the drafts in it ! 

So i'll have to begin again like Michael Finnegan. 


Oh....i've been out and done the deed. See attached. 

JennyJ

It looks better already!