Please help with Jade Plant

My daughter has Jade Plant that has been in her husband's family for years. Her dog broke a branch off and she gave it to me. The piece is about as big around as my little finger, has three "joints" and is about 3" long. On top of the stem there are several fully leaved branches. The whole piece is about 7" from bottom to top of leaves. It must have been broken off several days before she found it because the end is dried. I know NOTHING about rooting plants other than sticking Impatience and Coleus in the dirt and having them grow. I REALLY love this plant and would appreciate any advice you can give me.
Pati

Pati,

This past fall I took a class on propagation and it just so happened that one of the plants was a Jade. We just broke off a single leaf, moistened it with Root-on and put it just into the soil. That was it and they rooted. You could have several plants this way.

Hi patti , nice to see you again.

First have some rooting hormone on hand.........This helps but the procedure can be accomplished without the hormone as it has been done for centuries before.... " I remember"....LOL
....NOTE>>>>>>>
If you decide to go without the rootone go directly to **PLANTING*** since your cutting is already calloused over......

..............Start with a fresh cut at the end of your jade branch.
When making your cuttings, be sure to use a sterile, very sharp knife!
.............The surface of the cut should then be lightly dusted with a rooting hormone Roottone (with fungicide). The cutting should then be left in a warm, dry place no in direct sun until a callous developes over the cut. This usually takes anywhere up to a week, depending on the thickness of the stem.

***PLANTING***The cutting may then be planted into sterile potting soil, or set temporarily into a rooting medium such as vermiculite or perlite.
...............Watering should be kept to the bare minimum (barely damp), and then gradually increased as the roots begin to develop. Ideally, the soil temperature should be kept at 75 degrees F. which will speed the rooting process considerably.
...................Jade leaves can also be used to create a clone, but this method will take much longer before you have a specimen size plant. Leaves will take only a few days to callous, after which you simply insert the base of the leaf slightly into lightly moistened potting soil or rooting medium. It may take a month or longer for the cutting to root and the plantlet to start growing from the base of the leaf.
...............Gradually increase the watering as the plant grows until it has reached a size suitable for repotting.
With either method, feeding should be withheld until the new plant has become established, and even at that point should be a dilute half strength mixture of the fertilizer.

Take Care my Friend,
Shirley >^..^< SB

Thanks Pins, there are enough leaves to give the leaf method a try.

O.K. Shirly, That screech you hear is me "peeling off" to go get Roottone (with fungicide)at HD! I am going to re-cut the stem because it looks grungy like it might have been chewed off. Since the culprit dog is a Jack Russell, anything is possible. *LOL* I'm going to have to devise a way to prop this up when I plant it. The top is very full of leaves, so top heavy. My daughter is going to be really happy about finding a way to propagate her plant. It belonged to her husband's mother and she has been afraid something would happen to it. He is very attached to it.
BTW, I ran across a picture you had posted of your beautiful black German Shepherd. We had one years ago and loved her dearly.
Pati

Pati ,
.......... you could get a container wide enough to start it in, so that you can kind of stick it in one side and let it lean over on the rest of the pot as if it had blown over. This way it will support itself......
..........Well!! I know what I mean...........!!!!!!!!

.........This way the branch will not be disturbed by the stake and the resulting wiggling the plant will go through every time it is disturbed, I know how heavy these Jades can be (-;
TTYL,
§

Jades. One of my favorite hobby plants! Don't worry, Pati...they easily root. I've never used a rooting hormone and they do fine. Often-times a piece will break off a parent plant and I just stick it in the soil of the same pot the parent is in. I have entirely too many jade plants...wish I could ship you one!

Perhaps tomorrow I can take some pics. Right now, quite a few of them are flowering, a rare sight for most folks to see.

..........Well!! I know what I mean...........!!!!!!!!
I know what you mean too! *LOL*

SHOE, you mean they bloom? I would really LOVE to see pictures of that..it's an added bonus to a really lovely plant.
Pati

Just took a couple pics.

Here is a decent shot showing how the flowers tend to "float" above and away from the plant. (Sorry about the off-colored leaves, this one was near the louver that someone forgot to close one cool night!)

Here's a close-up, showing the "star-shape" of the flowers. (Sorry, my camera doesn't do well with superclose pics, but you get the idea.)

And finally, one of my most favorite things is to play with the jades! Here is one I've "trained" into a topiary style. This pic really doesn't do it justice but I put in the pocket note pad and pen to help give an idea of its size.

what kind of soil do you use for your jades - my daughter moved home with one planted in sand and it is not doing well.

I think they need a loam (half sand/half soil)

Is this right?

Oh Shoe, these are absolutely beautiful!! I can't wait to show them to my daughter. How old do these plants have to be before they bloom? I know they grow very slowly, at my age I may not have time enough to hang around. *LOL*
Pati

I got a few questions if you don't mind me jumping in on this thread......

I have a jade that has dwindled to a single stem that's all toppled over. Shoe yours are so purdy and healthy and strong. I too would like to confirm the soil used. Also, I thought I'd read somewhere that because they are succulents that watering should be infrequent. Is that right? Maybe mine's dying of thirst!

Last question....can I trim the plant so it's not so scraggly and leggy and train it to be bushier like Shoe's? (I'm jealous of Shoe's beauties!). Brenda

Morning Folks! (Snowing here! And Daughter loves it!)

I just use a store-bought potting soil. Get some that has perlite in it tho, to help drain the water out. And don't put gravel in the bottom of your pot...that really doesn't help the soil to drain. I suppose you could also buy potting soil recommended for cactus but I've never used it for jades.

Pati, they can bloom even when small but will only have a few flowers on them. The bigger the plant the more flowers they'll begat. I have some in 4 inch pots that have bloomed. The big 'topiary' pictured above is probably 5-6 yrs old and basically lives in the greenhouse. The others are either that age or younger.

I think they bloom best when 'benign neglect' is offered them!

As for watering, if you feel the leaves and they feel semi-soft and puffy they don't need water. When the leaves begin to feel hard (but not wrinkled/withered) water them till the water comes out the bottom of the pot, then forget about them. That is why good drainage is important...if the soil holds the water like a sponge, not good.

I very seldom feed them anything. Maybe twice a year when I'm spraying fish emulsion on other plants in the greenhouse I'll do the jades also. (I don't recommend fish emulsion in the house! Pee-yuuu!) (Perhaps you could use it during the warm months when you can put the plant outdoors tho.)

Hope this helps. Thanks for the compliments! They sure are great plants to grow and have fun with. You can just feel their personality! (Here's another group.)

Shoe,
.......There is a tiny town nearby, on the river, that has an old-timey butcher shop, which is unheard of around here.His wife Phyllis has the largest potted Jade taking up the whole front window. She got it from her DGM and has no idea how old it is. Phyllis is in her 70's. The last time the plant need to be re-potted it took 3 burly men to handle the job, but this was a few years ago.
............ Frank her hubby is slowing down but still at it, slinging the beef sides around, but his 2 sons are fixing to take over, the same way I hope. Old Frank even smokes turkeys and ham to order around the holidays. The best brats and sausages around. I can get a whole sirloin tip ground for hamburger meat at the same cost of that awful ( mystery) grinding meat from the chain stores.
...........The town also boasts of the original stage stop building that has been a wonderful restaurant for steak and lobster type dining for generations . It's called the Stage Stop.....Good Name!......lol
§

Yummy. If I'm ever there all I need to do to find that place is look in the windows for a giant jade plant, eh?

(Good tip on the sirloin for ground meat! Thanks, I have an electric meat grinder being delivered today, hopefully.)

wow shoe those are great looking
I got some this fall from a member and mine are dong great-i sure hope someday to have flowers like yours.

Glad your daughter got her snow-we have some coming in tonight that i really would love to send her! ;)

have fun making snowballs!

dori...I've been pummeled several times today with snowballs! A snowman stood nearby, grinning at me!

Enjoy your jades!

Let it dry, it may even send roots out telling you it needs potting up, use a fast draining soil, start watering only when when you give it a tiny tug and it won't come out of the soil, It's best not to water plants until they develop roots, especially Jades, I would keep that piece out of soil for as long as you can, the leaves will shrivel up a bit, then plant it. I have some pieces of a very strange Crasula ovata 'Jade' that recently dropped off one of mine, it just rooted themselfs on the ground. Use perlite in your soil mix, it's better than that other stuff. Crasulady2 If you gals want 'Jades' large cuts or small let me know I have so many growing just wild here in Calif. you pay the postage I'll send the plants, tell me what size you want. I'm glad to share, and my neighbors would be pleased if I pruned them for them. Norma