How To Grow Jade Houseplants Indoors Repot Prune Propagate Crasula Plants

I remember when you were just a tiny little guy not too long ago. Introduce you to the YouTube world as one of the easiest houseplants to care for. Look at you now. Where did the time go? Hey guys, what's going on? Welcome back to my channel. For those who's new, my name is Christian and I'm a jade plant and that's because we are going to talk all about the jade plant in today's video. I'm going to share with you guys how to care and grow your jade plant as an indoor house plant. Typically they are grown outdoors because they do require a lot of that full sun. Natively they are found in areas of South Africa and Mozambique. And the one thing that's cool about a jade plant or why I was attracted to it is because of its ability to grow into like a tree like plant with its trunk and branches. There are a few varieties of Cressulas or jade plants you'll come across. I got two different kinds with me right now. I have this one called the Cressula or mini jade plant. It's known to have these oval shaped succulent leaves that are green with a bit of red or maroon shades to its edges. Really, really cool, really stunning. And I've had this one for almost three years this summer. When I first got this one, it was a tiny little guy and I'm going to share with you guys how I got it to grow to this size. And then I also have this one which is called the Cressula Yundelana or Yundelana if I pronounce it correctly. But it's known to have these bluish green wavy leaves on it and really, really cool. I think I got this last summer as part of my houseplant shopping challenge when I went to Ikea and I think Home Depot. Another reason why I love the jade plant is because they are really easy to care for as an indoor houseplant. So today I'm going to touch a bit on the lighting, the watering, the proper potting medium you should have your jade plant in. We're going to touch a bit on fertilizer and then I'm going to do a bit of repotting, pruning, and propagation. And then we're going to talk a little bit about the common pests or issues that people often face when it comes to their jade plants. I'm going to put the topic timestamp in the description below so feel free to jump ahead if you'd like. But first let's talk about the lighting. So as I mentioned, these guys are natively grown in areas of South Africa or Mozambique. So they do need that bright light, even a few hours of direct sunlight or a few hours of full sun. I have mine close to my south facing window pretty much all year long except for about a few weeks during the summer when I will bring it out in the terrace just to get a bit more of that sun and really get the colors to pop. Now if you don't have a south facing window you know east or west is okay or southeast southwest are preferred. Once you start getting into like a north or northeast or northwest I don't recommend you have a jade plant because they will not necessarily grow to its fullest under those lighting conditions and you may experience a bit of the leaves dropping especially when you start getting into like the winter months. So like I said they do prefer to be in bright light, south facing, east or west preferred. Now when it comes to watering your jade plant the thing to keep in mind is you don't need to water this plant often. You have to make sure that that soil is completely dry, bone dry, 100% dry before you even decide to throw some water on this plant and the way to tell that is lift the pot to make sure it's light, stick your finger in the soil to make sure it is dry and no wet soil is sticking to your fingers. Use a moisture meter if you have to or what you guys can do is touch the leaves to see if it's firm or if it's starting to feel a bit soft and once you start feeling it a bit soft plus the pot is light the soil is dry then that's a good time to water your plant. The way I water my jade plant is from the top and making sure that water drains through completely before placing it back in its location. Now I do have this chopstick ready to loosen the top layer of the soil after watering because typically when you water your plant the top layer of the soil tends to get packed down and because these guys are prone to root rot I want to just make sure that there's a bit more airflow within the soil so I like to loosen that top layer. Now when it comes to the potting medium this is another important thing to make sure that you have your jade plant in a very airy potting medium. I use mostly cacti soil pretty much 80% cacti soil on my jade plant and then about 20% perlite or pumice to add a bit more extra drainage. I would definitely avoid potting these guys in just regular potting mix without any perlite or pumice because like I said they need that soil to be airy. These guys pretty much are like cacti you don't want to have them sitting in wet or moist soil for long periods of time they retain a lot of their moisture in their leaves and in their trunk so again they prefer to be more on the drier side. Now when it comes to fertilizing your jade plants I would say just follow the basic guidelines do it only during the growing season maybe once or twice you know follow the instruction dilute it and maybe just use kind of an even balance fertilizer like a 10-10-10 or 5-5-5 whatever but I typically don't fertilize my jade plant and that's because they are growing constantly for me all year long it has to do more with my lighting and the watering that I do when it comes to my jade plant rather than the fertilizer but some people you know fertilize their jade plant. Now we're going to do a bit of repotting and propagation and pruning I have my other Ovada mini jade plant here these guys were actually cuttings that I took from this mother plant when I was pruning these guys and we're going to talk a little bit about that as well too so I do want to separate a few of these guys and make it into like two pots and two plants and then we're going to prune a couple of them and then we're going to propagate a few of the leaves and the stems that we cut off. All right guys so I got set up here we got our potting mat so that way we don't make a mess I got my potting medium here I got the other camera turned on so that way you guys can see the angle and what we're going to do is we are going to remove this guy from its current pot I think this is about a five inch container where did I get this five inch container usually I don't find I don't find many five inch container but we're going to remove him from this we're going to separate it into about two different groups of plants there's I think about two four six eight nine little guys here and we're going to about like four and five I got my four inch container here one thing to keep in mind when it comes to repotting your jade plant is they do not like to be potted up in a bigger pot they prefer to actually be root down so that's another way to also avoid common problems like root rot is make sure that you are not potting up your jade plant into a big size of a pot that it doesn't really need to be in I think it's a common mistake that we often make with most of our plants to be honest but yeah I just separated these guys look at it so the roots when it comes to these types of jade plant is they are a little bit more thread like not necessarily you know thick like an antherium or any of that type of plant yeah this soil is bone dry so it does need to be watered once I do repot it so I'm not going to yeah I'm just going to separate a bit like this just to have it a little bit more angled and again I'm going to use the same pot here throw a bit of soil pot it up like that and then pretty much just top it up with more soil all right guys so there's one pot that we made and again you want to make sure that you give down a good drink especially because the soil is really bone dry and the leaves are starting to feel a bit more soft and not as firm as I prefer them to be in so here's the other group this one's nice it has a bit of different heights that we got here so I'm just going to pot it in this four inch square pot add a bit of layer of soil there and then we are going to just top it up perfect all right guys so now that we repotted our jade plant it's two different pots what I want to do next is actually prune one of them back we're going to prune this guy and pruning helps promote growth on your jade plant especially if you wanted to branch out and form more into like a tree similar to what I did with the the mother plant here you know when I got this guy I started to actually prune it back to try and create a bit more of this shape that you guys see now it's growing a bit wild but it's exactly what I was trying to go for because I really did want this to look more into like a tree as it kind of grew and mature so what you want to do when it comes to pruning your jade plant is simply just figure out where you want that branch to start and then cut between those nodes or those cane lines that you see here on the main stem so typically those lines are just between where the leaves grow and the space in between that so for example you know with this top right here what I just want to do is maybe cut right here just between or maybe I'll go a little bit lower because I do want this to kind of you know start off low and then from there we'll continue to prune but just between where those lines are that you see there and that's pretty much it and then what will typically happen right here is they will actually start growing you know new leaves on each side and then from there it'll grow into like two branches similar to what you're gonna see on this main mother plant you guys can see where I cut right here you guys can see that camera right there and pretty much that's where those two branches grew sometimes you can grow a third one and from there you can kind of keep pruning it back to then create a bit more of this wild look that you see there now when you cut off you know a piece of your jade plant you can easily propagate these guys simply remove a bit of the kind of just create a bit of a bare stem at the bottom and then you just simply take this and stick it into your pot with some soil and top it up and give it some water and that's pretty much it really really easy when it comes to propagating jade plants another method to propagate your jade plant is obviously you know taking some of these leaves and then placing it in a bed of soil making sure that that soil is nice and moist consistently so you can always spray it or mist it and just to kind of create a bit of that root and you guys see here I'm going to place it near my echevera similar method to propagation and you can already see a bit of root and new leaves growing on these echevera so same thing's going to happen with your little jade leaves that you see here but that's pretty much it very very easy to prune propagate repot and really really easy to care for again as long as you can give that proper lighting and make sure that you are not overwatering your plant now let's talk about the common pests that people often experience when it comes to your jade plants because these are succulents they are prone to getting mealybugs and mealybugs are really easy to treat I find first of all if you can stay on top of your pest control management by spraying this down with your homemade pesticide spray or just using some n all you know once a month it will prevent any mealybugs or other pests from obviously going on it but if you do find some really really easy to treat just get a q-tip dip it in some alcohol rubbing alcohol and then target those mealybugs as long as you can stay on top of it and don't let it get out of hand your jade plant should be pest free the other common issue and probably the most people often experience is the leaves start dropping out of nowhere and the branch starts falling off and they're noticing it's hollow from the inside now one thing about jade plants is I was talking about that they are prone to root rot unlike other tropical houseplants like say a monstera or a pothos you can tell when there's root rot because the leaves are starting to turn black and it goes from the edges or even you know patches of black on the middle parts of the leaf with a jade plant when it's rotting it rots from the inside out so it's really hard to tell if you are experiencing rotting again if all of a sudden your plant starts to drop leaves or you know the branches are breaking off and you are noticing the it's hollow figure out if you did something different if you all of a sudden started to water it a bit more or you move its location and it's you know not drying out as fast as normally was so just be mindful of what you did to create that if you are experiencing rotting from the inside out the best way to fix it is remove it out of the soil it's in and dry up that root and leave it for about a day or two before potting it into some fresh dry soil then you want to start pruning your jade from the top all the way down until you stop seeing where that hollow or discoloration of the trunk or the main stem is happening because you know like i said when we cut this jade plant you guys can see here it's you know a nice green color but once you start getting into like a brown or discoloration that's when you know rotting is happening so you want to figure out where that rotting ends to be able to try and save your jade sometimes you can't save it because it's just completely rotted and you kind of need to start over and get a new plant but really a way to avoid that is just cut back on your watering and avoid watering your plant often and only water it when that soil is completely bone dry so that is pretty much it when it comes to carrying and growing your jade plant comment below and let me know if you have any other questions when it comes to a jade plant or what other type of varieties of jade you guys think i should get because i do want to get a few more jade plant i was actually looking online on a few varieties there's one that i saw i forget what it's called but it looks really cool it has more of like a needle shape um a leaf to it and it's more of like a bluish purple color anyway really really cool but uh yeah hopefully you guys enjoyed this video learn a thing or two until then enjoy the rest of your weekend and we'll see you guys soon peace