Sprite
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Jade advice: best conditions for a thriving Jade

I am hoping to find advice on helping my Jade return to her former glory. :oops:

Let me tell you her story. I was visiting a good friends house and upon admiring her huge and amazing Jade tree potted at the entrance of her house, I notice many dropped leaves arround the pot. I had heard jade leaves would grow into plants if planted and she suggested I take a whole bunch. I imagined have 20 baby jades growing arround my house but only one paired set actually took, all the rest were single leaves.

It was slow going but they were the only ones that did not shrivel or rot to mush so I kept hoping and then after I had sort of put the pot aside and stopped watching it daily for signs of growth I noticed one day while cleaning it had a stem! Then it got moved to the window in my bedroom. I said good morning and good night to it.

It was actually my first house plant I had had in many years, and I have since learned I do best with plants that can be forgotten about for short periods of time. :roll: So weeks went by, it grew taller... then... two more leaves, and again and again until it was growing it's 5th set of leaves.

Thats when I moved. Thats when I forgot to bring in my houseplants at night to the hotel rooms while we travelled across Canada in our van during the early spring. So she suffered chilling cold, lost leaves and lived. She suffered a softening of the base of the stem and lost leaves from being over watered by well-meaning inlaws. Somewhere in all this abuse I tipped over the whole pot and busted a stem. And just when she was starting to grow 2 new sets of leaves from between the top set that survived the trip which made a branching V at the top I decided she needed some summer sun. Little did I know the sun burned her and she lost all but the original leaves but the stems and a couple tiny baby leaves survived.

Now that life has settled down I am able to provide the ideal conditions with which to grow my Jade... :? If only I knew what those were. I have 2 south facing windows: a frosted glass in the bathroom and a regular window in the kitchen. And also have a bay window on the east side in the livingroom. It's in a plastic pot with peat based soil with a bit of perlite mixed in. I was going to make my avatar my jade plant photo but I can't seem to get it down to 9KB file size. I am giving up on that now.

So how can I take the very best care of this lovely jade so that it thrives and grows big and beautiful?

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Kisal
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I would pot it up in a very fast-draining potting mix designed for cacti and succulents. Find one without peat, if you can. Then put it in that nice east window and water only when the soil is dry about 1 to 2 inches below the surface.

Remember, it will enter dormancy during the winter months, and may need even less water. I would water when the leaves just began to show a tiny bit of surface wrinkling, just the first hint. Also, move it a foot or two into the house, away from the window glass at night, when outside temperatures drop below 40 degrees F. It should do fine for you. :)

Sprite
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YAY! Thank you!
When I repot her into cacti soil should I try to rinse off all the peaty soil from her roots before repotting? Would it also be beneficial if I pot her in a terracotta pot? And use filtered water, room temperature snow or rain water?

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Kisal
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Location: Oregon

No, disturb the root ball as little as possible. Jades are amazingly forgiving about their soil mix, especially while young and small, so the old soil won't do any harm. OTOH, removing the old soil could send the plant into deep shock. I'm assuming yours isn't a large, mature Jade, because of all the trauma it's survived recently. :)

You might want to continue to try starting more Jades from single leaves. I believe they failed for you because they were kept too moist. Stick them just deep enough in a little pot of cactus mix, so they don't fall over, water well once, then set them aside in bright indirect light and ignore them for 2 or 3 weeks. Make sure any little "helpers" ignore them, too. You may be happily surprised with new baby plants. :)



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