Need help Indentifying

[celticjoe]

hey all,
I have had a plant in my room for a while now, maybe 3 years or so but as a novice with all this i do not actually know what type of plant it is and it seems to be developing many little white pimples on a few leaves. I need some help identifying it so i can check if it has any disease etc. I am also just curious to know what it is

[Kisal]

It looks like what I used to know as Elephant Bush (Portulacaria afra), a member of the Crassula family. But I could certainly be mistaken. If it is Portulacaria afra, I think it looks like it needs somewhat stronger light. JMO.

[celticjoe]

Hmm, thanks for the reply, done a bit of research but its not an elephant bush

[tedly]

Looks like a jade plant to me.

[celticjoe]

Hmm, thanks for replying tedly. Some of the pictures do look like it but it never flowers. So im am still very unsure. Some pictures say its a bonsai but it has never required any care like a bonsai would.

[Kisal]

Jades, which along with Portulacaria are also members of the Crassula family, are usually classed among foliage plants, as opposed to flowering plants. They require special care in order to bloom ... cool, but not freezing, temperatures in the fall, and withholding of water. After several weeks in such conditions, regular care is resumed. Buds and flowers appear around Christmas, if I recall correctly.

I provide similar treatment to encourage my holiday cacti to bloom.

[celticjoe]

I think you're right kisal thankyou very much. You see i have been wandering what this little white pimples on the leaves were which they usually go away. It must be the plant starting to flower but as it doesn't have the right conditions it never fully blooms. Any reccomendations on what i can do to encourage the flowering?

[celticjoe]

Just re-checked but those white bits on the leaves arn't buds. I think it might be something else which worries me.

[Kisal]

They are probably salt deposits. Can you wipe them off with a damp cloth? Jades do that, and it doesn't usually cause them any harm.

If you fertilize the plant, use a weaker solution, about 1/4 what is recommended on the label of the product you use. You can water with distilled water, if you like. It might help lessen the problem.

If the plant has been in the same soil for a long time, salts may have built up in the soil. You can rinse some of them out by repeatedly drenching the soil with distilled water.

Is this a plant you intend to use as a bonsai? I'm just curious.

If you can post a clear close up of a leaf or two, so we can see the spots, we may be able to tell you whether they're insects. I think they're probably just salt, though.

[Green Mantis]

When the leaves are thin, like in your picture, you need to give it more water. Soak it in the sink until water runs out the bottom, then leave it. Give it more water when ever those leaves look a little thin. I thought I was losing mine, until I read on here somewhere to give it a real good watering. It worked!!! It's doing fine now. Mine is also a Jade plant. Only a little one still. It was Kisal that told me, I just realized!!

[tedly]

Jade plants flower? I've had them for years and never seen one flower. Wonder what I'm doing wrong?

[cynthia_h]

You're probably not doing *anything* wrong. Jade plant (Crassula ovata or C. argentea; also sometimes sold as C. portulacea), according to the Sunset Western Garden Book, is suited for mild-winter areas. I've also read, in newspaper gardening columns here (don't remember when, but prob. late '80s/early '90s, before Internet), that it takes a certain amount of December sunlight to trigger flowering, which takes place in the winter.

My jade plants' flowers are fading now. I hope they enjoyed all the rain we had this year; 200% and then some of normal, I think. They must have gotten all their sunlight in December and early January, because there was precious little available after that until this very week. *whew*

Sunset also says that "Most [Crassulae] are from South Africa. All have succulent foliage, and many have strange geometric forms. Need good drainage. May not survive winter without overhead protection in Zones 8, 9, 12-15, 18-21." (These are Sunset climate zones, obviously; they "achieve" below-freezing winter temps regularly.)

I imagine that the combination of bright winter sun + mild outdoor temps is hard to come by in the more northerly latitudes of our country; there are winters when even my jade, at only 37 deg North and infrequent freezing temps, doesn't bloom.

Please don't beat yourself up if your carefully tended--and long-lived!--indoor jade plant hasn't bloomed for you. You're doing a good job with the conditions Mother Nature has handed you.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9