A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2004 Jade Plant questions

I've never wrestled with this plant before (I'm used to Serissas, Ficus' .et .al), and after reading through the care information here, and at a few other URLs, I'm still a bit confused if I've done right or wrong to these plants.

A dear friend wanted to reciprocate a gift of a Ficus Benjimina Bonsai. She gave me 4 "cuttings" of her VERY old and healthy Jade plant. The caliper on these are 1/2 in and 2 in. She sent them home with my daughter with the instructions to just "plant them".

"Okay," I think to myself," but that 2 inch monster (14 inches high, 9 inches across with multiple branches and hordes of leaves) seems like asking alot of a cutting to take root."

They are in high draining soil mix (coconut coir, Ocean Forest Soil, perlite, and grit). I always "wet" the soil as I mix it (much like cookie dough) before planting anything. Clay hydroponic balls line the bottom of the nursery pots (2 gallon). I hesitated about root hormone or rooting gel, and opted out. Mistake?

I also misted them all once the potting was done. Currently we are running 80-100% humidity and temp averages of about 85 degrees, with sun and intermittent clouds.

They are in a shaded spot on my front porch with my other specimen trees.

Thoughts? Corrections?
TIA

Jades are VERY easy to take care of and propagate So easy to propagate, that you could do it and not even mean to!

What we do at our job is we get some regular potting soil (mix of soil, pearlite, slow release fertalizer, and sand) and we put that in a 4" pot. Then we go to our big jade that alllllllll the jade plants in our store come from. We pick a branch, cleancut it off, and stick it in the soil mix. And that's it! 3 weeks later, we got a jade with a root system of its own, and i'll repot it into a clay 5" pot for the retail store up front

You're doing the right thing so far. Keep it in ambient light rather than sunlight for a while yet, and then slowly introduce it to sunlight as new growth appears.

Good luck!

~Phoebe

I did the exact same thing, just took a piece off of my jade and stuck it in some soil. Here we are about a month later and it's looking wonderful.

Fabulous!

Thanks so much for the details on your workflow Nako. Amazing plant indeed.

I'm feeling much more confident now.