Jade can make a great houseplant, especially in a classic ceramic or terracotta pot.
Growing Jade Plants: Lighting, Watering, Repotting, Propogation, and Pests
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Planting
How to Plant Jade Plants
- Choose a wide and sturdy pot with a moderate depth, as jade plants tend to grow top-heavy and fall over.
- Use soil that will drain thoroughly, as excessive moisture may promote fungal diseases like root rot. An all-purpose potting mix will work, though you will want to mix in additional perlite to improve drainage. A 2:1 ratio of potting mix to perlite is great. Alternatively, use a premade succulent or cacti potting mix.
- After planting a jade plant, don’t water it right away. Waiting anywhere from several days to a week before watering lets the roots settle and recover from any damage.
Photo by trambler58/Shutterstock.
How to Start a Jade Plant from a Leaf or Stem-Cutting
As a succulent, jade plants are very easy to start from single leaves or cuttings. A stem cutting is a great method when a branch of your jade plant happens to fall off. Just put that cutting in the soil, and you have a new baby plant or a gift plant! If you have time, however, you can propagate from a single leaf!
Propagate before the weather gets cool. And make sure you start with a well-established plant.
- For a stem cutting, ensure you’re using clean clippers or scissors to take your cutting, which must be 3 to 4 inches long. If you’re using a leaf, it must be the complete leaf, that includes the small pointy bit that breaks off from the stem.
- Once you have your leaf or cutting, allow it to sit for several days in a warm place; a callous will form over the cut area, helping to prevent rot and encourage rooting.
- Gather your pot and a well-draining potting mix. Use soil that is slightly moist but not wet.
- Lay the leaf on top of the soil horizontally, covering the cut end with some of the soil. If you have a stem cutting, place it upright in the soil (prop it up with a few small rocks or toothpicks if it won’t stand on its own).
- Place the pot in a warm place with bright, indirect light. Do not water.
- After a week or two, the leaf or cutting will start sending out roots. Give the plant a gentle poke or tug a week or so after that to see if it has rooted itself in place. If it hasn’t, wait a bit longer, testing it (gently!) every few days.
- Once the plant seems to be firmly rooted, water it deeply and carefully. Use something like a turkey baster to gently water the plant without disturbing the roots too much. Make sure that you don’t just get the surface layer of the soil wet, as you want to encourage the roots to grow downward for water, not towards the surface.
- Let the soil dry out between waterings and keep the plant out of intense direct sunlight until it is well established.
Growing
How to Care for Jade Plants
Lighting
- Jade plants should receive at least 6 hours of bright light each day. Young plants should be kept in bright, indirect sunlight; large, well-established jade plants can handle more direct sunlight.
- Kitchens and offices with south-facing windows are typically great spots with just enough light, as are western-facing windows.
- Jade plants that are kept in low light can become leggy and top-heavy, making them susceptible to damage if they fall over, or become unable to support their own branches!
Temperature
- Jade plants grow best at room temperature (65° to 75°F / 18° to 24°C), but prefer slightly cooler temperatures at night and in the winter (down to 55°F / 13°C).
- Note: Jade plants are not frost tolerant, so if you keep yours outdoors during the summer, be sure to bring it inside once temperatures fall to around 50°F (10°C) in autumn.
- During winter, move jade plants away from cold windows and keep them out of drafty areas. If exposed to cold temps, jade plants may drop their leaves.
Watering
- Watering jade plants correctly is very important! Improper watering is the number one issue that most people experience with their jade plants.
- When the plant is actively growing in the spring and summer, it will require more water than at other times of the year. Water jade plants deeply (meaning that the soil gets sufficiently moistened throughout—not just at the surface), then wait until the soil has mostly dried out before you water it again. This means that you could end up watering it once a week or once a month—it depends entirely on how quickly the soil dries out in the environment where you keep your plant.
- The plant may go dormant in the fall and winter, causing it to slow or pause growth entirely. During this time, it won’t need much water. Water it less often than in the spring and summer, allowing the soil to dry out fully between waterings. Large, well-established jades may not need more than one or two waterings throughout their entire dormancy period.
- Try to avoid splashing water on the leaves while watering, as this can expose them to rot in a humid environment.
- Jade plants can be sensitive to salts in tap water, so water with filtered or distilled water if your tap water is not ideal.
- If the plant starts to drop its leaves, if the leaves look shriveled, or if brown spots appear on the leaves, it indicates that the plant needs MORE water.
- If leaves become squishy and waterlogged, the plant is getting TOO MUCH water.
Read more about How to Water Plants for Healthy Growth.
Fertilizing
- Jade plants don’t require high levels of nutrients and should be fed sparingly. Use a diluted mix of a standard liquid houseplant fertilizer or a fertilizer made for cacti and succulents.
If you prefer using your own fertilizer, you can use our Organic Homemade Plant Fertilizer.
Repotting Jade Plants
- Jade plants don’t mind being root-bound in a small pot. In fact, keeping them root-bound will keep the jade smaller and more manageable.
- Repot young jade plants once every 2 to 3 years to encourage growth. With older jade, repot once every 4 to 5 years or as necessary.
- Transplant in the early spring, just before the growing season begins.
- After repotting, don’t water the plant for a week or so. Wait at least a month before fertilizing so as not to burn fresh roots accidentally.
Photo by Mauricio Acosta Rojas/Shutterstock.
Types
There are many types of jade plants available—from the standard, green-leafed jade to a number of variegated varieties. Here are a few exciting jades to keep an eye out for:
- ‘Hummel’s Sunset’ has beautiful yellow- and red-tipped leaves.
- ‘Tricolor’ has leaves variegated with white and cream.
- ’ET’s Fingers’ has tubular leaves with red tips. An oddity!
Catherine Boeckmann
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We assume that you are providing the same care to both plants in terms of watering and fertilizing. Jade tends to turn lighter with more sun—could the lighter-colored plant be getting more sun than the other? If it doesn’t look healthy, it could be that it got overwatered and is trying to recover from wet roots. Additionally, some varieties of jade are simply lighter-colored than others and have different growth patterns, so that could be it, too!
I have a Jade now in a 4" pot. I've thought about a tree size one since early 70s. Looking online for one I told a friend in southern California about it. Knowing he has Jade hedges. He said he never thought of it as a tree. So he's sending me one in Indiana to arrive Monday December 17.
What would your suggestion be as potting it. I've read about soil mix. This is coming from yard dirt. Just plant an roots he said. I assume it'll be 3-4 foot tall. Really appreciate your help.
Looking forward to receiving the Jade and I will keep it indoors until later spring and summer then in my sunroom.
Growing green with excitement
John
That sounds like a great gift from your friend! We hope it arrived safe and sound.
As for potting it, we would recommend using a wide, heavy ceramic pot so that you won’t have to worry about the plant tipping over and so that water can drain from the soil more easily. Be sure to pick a pot with a hole in the bottom, too! Plant the jade about as deep as it looked to be planted in California. When you do plant it, don’t water it right away. Give it a week or two to settle in and reestablish its roots before watering, and water deeply when you do. Before it roots, it may need some help standing up straight; use wooden dowels or stakes to hold it in place just until it can stand up on its own, then remove the supports.
Best of luck with your new jade tree!
I have a HUGE jade. Its about 5 1/2 feet tall. I repotted it last fall. It lives on my patio in the spring and summer and comes inside for the fall/winter. It usually blooms after I bring it in. This year (its been inside about a week, and its "sagging" branches are being pulled down by gravity. Its never done this before. It did grow ALOT this year being in its new pot. Ideas about what I should do. I hate to tie and stake it as I want it to stay strong.
I repotted my Jade a few days ago and ended up watering it just a little bit - should I repot it again or just wait a week or so until I water it. Or wait longer?
As long as you didn’t absolutely soak the soil, your plant should be fine. Rather than going by a set schedule, determine when to water the plant again based on observing the soil: stick your finger into the soil (gently and not near the base of the plant, so as to avoid disturbing roots) and if the soil is consistently dry to about an inch in depth, you can water again. Follow further watering instructions above.
The issue likely comes down to watering or lighting. Both over- and underwatering jade can make their branches droop. How does the soil look? If it’s been a while since the last watering, give the plant a good drink. If it was just watered recently, let it dry out sufficiently before watering again (bear in mind that it may take more or less time to dry out indoors, depending on the humidity of your home and whether the plant is in direct sunlight). Speaking of light, your jade could just need time to adjust to indoor lighting again. Even if it’s in a sunny southern window, the rays won’t be as strong as they were outside, and the plant needs to get used to the lower light levels. Alternatively, if the plant was in a shady spot outdoors all summer, its branches could have been weakened and droopy.
We would advise you to keep the above in mind in regards to watering and lighting, and wait a few weeks to see if the plant shows any signs of improvement. If it doesn’t, consider staking it to ensure that the branches don’t break off.
I have a large jade plant with multiple long branches which are now becoming more horizontal. This summer, new little branches with several little leaves have begun to grow off of the closer in portions of the longer branches. Further out along the branches it looks like the plant is trying to put down little roots.
What shall I do? Shall I trim off the older ends of the bigger branches and try to root them in the soil? Shall I just let it be?
Thanks.
This sounds like pretty normal growth for a jade plant! If you’d prefer your plant to be a little bushier, let the new branches that are close to the central stem grow out. Otherwise, you can prune them off and plant them like cuttings, though it would be best to do this in the spring.
As for the roots, they’re nothing to be concerned about and can also be trimmed off if you don’t like the look of them. Older jades sometimes grow aerial roots due to environmental stress (water, temperature, lighting)—or for no reason at all. If yours has been exposed to more extreme conditions than usual this summer, this could have spurred on their growth. But, it sounds like you’ve had your plant for a long time, so just continue to care for it as you have in the past and it should be fine!
I have a jade plant in my office close to a South-facing window and it has grown wonderfully in the past couple of years. This past March, however, I had to leave town suddenly to take care of my mother & wound up being gone for seven weeks b/c she passed away. Four weeks in, I remembered my poor plants and got my co-worker to water them. They all survived, but the three main (trunk-sized) branches off of the jade's primary trunk now grow horizontally and are 12" long. They are quite heavy & starting to grow smaller branches off of them, and I'm worried that they will snap right off & not survive the fall to the floor. For now, I'm going to try to use twine and physics to bring the branches up into a goblet-type shape. If anyone has a better idea for trying to get the branches to grow more vertically, however, I'd love to hear it. Thanks!
