Help the unexperienced! Repotted jade plant leaves wrinkling

alina.puce

Hi! 
Please give me some advice! This is my first and only jade plant, zero experience, the plant has been with me for a couple of years.
I've just repotted my jade plant (gollum), it's been maybe 2 weeks. From the first day, the leaves started to get softer and started wrinkling. I've had it for a couple of years, but it has only been really growing since moving to a new place a year ago. During this year it had gotten very root bound, was coming out of the pot with all of the soil and was bit too much top heavy. The plant gets much more sun in the new place. But it also started to struggle. The air here is more humid, the water a bit harder. I have no idea why the plant was struggling, the leaves were getting lighter, more soft, so I thought maybe it needs repotting.

I repotted it in a cactus mix + perlite (almost 1:1), the pot might be one size too large (the pot for the plant is not as big as the yellow pot around). I left it for almost a week with no watering, but because I noticed the soft leaves, I read a couple of discussions where people had put it in water and it worked. For me - I don't think it worked at all. 
*the pot has a lot of holes at the bottom, the yellow pot also has a hole.

When I took the plant out of the old soil, I thought the roots were quite OK. I removed some of the roots, that didn't look too good, but generally they seemed good. I do have to say I don't know how to recognise root rot. But the plant had a lot of strong healthy looking roots, not just one or two.

Is this normal that a jade plant could be struggling after repotting? Should I let it dry out completely or water it more? How can I tell? Before I only watered it after it was completely dry.
Can you tell what could be the problem by looking at the pictures?


 

wild edges

It's fine don't worry about it. These plants use up loads of leaves as they grow and they suck the water and nutrients out of them before shedding them. When you repot they can start using up leaves to help make new roots and that's normal. The rule is if in doubt don't water though as they can survive being dry much better than being too wet.

My only tip would be to clear the soil away from the base of the plant and between the branches and replace it with clean grit. It looks potted a bit deep but it's hard to tell from photos.

alina.puce

wild edges said:

It's fine don't worry about it. These plants use up loads of leaves as they grow and they suck the water and nutrients out of them before shedding them. When you repot they can start using up leaves to help make new roots and that's normal. The rule is if in doubt don't water though as they can survive being dry much better than being too wet.

My only tip would be to clear the soil away from the base of the plant and between the branches and replace it with clean grit. It looks potted a bit deep but it's hard to tell from photos.

It's not really that deep, one side of the trunk is heavier than the other and when I tried to clear the base from the soil, it started to fall to the side. But I will try to clear it a bit when it settles more in the new soil, so it doesn't fall over.
Thanks for the advice!