Subscribe to Posts
Old Roses mentioned how she has trouble keeping jade plants alive. Heh. She must be too conscientious. This jade plant was started from a piece that broke off a still bigger jade plant that was recently given away. My guess is it’s over ten years old. It grows in my bedroom and is neglected most severely. That is to say, it doesn’t get watered until the leaves are wrinkled. It’s rarely fertilized. And every summer we take it outside when all danger of frost has passed, cruelly plopping it out in a western exposure without exposing it to the outdoors gradually, and promptly forget about it. So far we’ve manage to remember it again before the first frost of autumn, but the only moisture it gets all summer is that which falls from the sky.
And what makes it bloom? I had it in my head that they need a temperature of 60 degrees F at night to set buds, but I can’t find that fact in my notes or either of my two books on houseplants. Since our upstairs renovation, our bedroom is not nearly as drafty, but we do have that stubborn streak of not turning on the furnace until October, so it’s possible it got that cool in September. But cool temps in September bring forth buds in December and January? I honestly don’t know.
And here’s something I didn’t know until today, thanks to The South African National Biodiversity Institute. Jade plants and others in that genus have a special method of metabolism that allows them to prevent water loss by recycling carbon dioxide within themselves. It’s called Crassulacean Acid Metabolism. Talk about high tech! I also didn’t know about the existence of variegated jade plants until I saw the one at OldRoses’ blog. Maybe in a couple of years–if she neglects it properly–I’ll be able to beg a piece off her to root for myself.
Popularity: 19% [?]
4 responses so far ↓
1
Alice Nelson
// Jan 29, 2006 at 6:51 pm
Just be careful with insecticides and jade plants. They just don’t get along. My daughter, donce upon a time when I had several large jades, sprayed them all with a plant insecticide and they promptly all died! They seem to be able to take one that you put in the
soil. Perhaps other people have more info on this. They seem to get mealybug easily.
2
Gregg
// Mar 23, 2006 at 5:55 pm
Ten years ago, I devided up a huge but sadly abused jade that had been beside an indoor pool. It had four thick stems and some type of rot was starting to kill it. I gave the cuttings to friends and promptly forgot about them. I visited them after ten years and they gave me a beautiful two foot tall jade with a fat trunk and tons of leaves. Their house is also full of them. Gregg from Maryland.
3
Louis Decocq,Bellingham,WA
// Jun 29, 2006 at 2:04 pm
We have an indoor Jade plant, about 40 years old, 5 feet tall…..healthy. Except the movers broke off part of a major stem. Is it possible to make a successful graft of a branch to the remains of the large stem ?
Thank you in advance.
4
Swampduck
// Jul 17, 2006 at 10:13 am
Hi, need a little help from you if poss.
My neighbour has just given me a jade tree, not many leaves on it though it is around 3ft tall, and has new growth on it. As I do not seem to be able to keep indoor plants, (bear in mind that I once killed a cactus!!!), any help you can give me as to how to look after it would be gratefully accepted and appreciated.
Would I be best off pruning the tree as I have read in another site? By the way when I move the tree leaves fall off all the time. It is watered and fed but do they loose leaves easily?
cheers
Swampduck
Please Leave a Comment