Ultimate Jade Plant Care Tips Keep Your Succulent Thriving

I think jade plants make the most beautiful simple understated statement piece in your home, but they do take a little bit of finessing sometimes to get used to exactly how they grow, but once you do they are super simple to take care of. So in this video today I'm just going to share a couple of tips and tricks on how to look after this amazing luscious little baby, including some super simple propagation techniques that anyone can do, and I mean anyone, and it's the biggest reason why I love this houseplant. So stick around for that one, but let's get to it. So the jade plant was actually one of the very first plants I got in my plant collection. It was before I even started collecting plants actually. I was given a couple of cuttings and found out that they are a super simple plant to take care of, so it's definitely one of my favorites because I've just had my jade plants from the beginning. The one you saw at the beginning of the video is actually a growth from the very first cutting I had, which is amazing for me because I had no idea about plants when I first started, so I'm quite proud of that one. So the jade plant is a succulent and it's a very popular houseplant you'll see in many households because it does have quite simple care requirements once you get to know what they are, and they can live a long time. These guys can be up to 50 to 70 years old, even longer if you care for them for a long time. They do have a bit of a common thought that they bring good financial fortune. I believe you have to keep it somewhere near the front door, I'm not quite sure, but they're meant to be a little bit of a money plant type thing. However, I would say that because they're so simple to care for, you don't have to spend money on a lot of fertilizer or a lot of watering, so they're probably bringing you money just by not spending a lot on the plant itself anyway. So yeah, I would say there is some good fortune in that, definitely. It is a succulent, so it can be a slow growing plant. I do find this one grows quite slow for me, but it is consistent growth. You'll see it slowly but surely growing, what, two to three inches every few months, so it is slow, but you'll see new leaves coming up all the time. And this plant can actually grow quite big if you let it over those 50 to 70 years. I don't have a plant that big, you saw the one at the front of my house, that's about, what, two foot, that's about 40 centimeters high, two foot high, but these guys can grow up to five to six feet high, or even taller, that's my height, that's just above my height, and about two to three feet wide. So they can be a real statement piece if you let them. So whilst this can be a quite super simple plant to look after, and it's actually probably a really good plant for beginners, you do have to choose where you put it in your house very wisely, because the one thing you have to know about this before you go out and buy one, these guys are very toxic to cats and dogs, so you want to keep them away if your cat or a dog goes and chews or rips up plants. And if, in case your cat or dog does chew it, it can induce vomiting, but it's not lethal, but please do go to your vet quickly. If they leave it alone, no problem, it doesn't have toxins coming out of it. But beautiful and simple, just maybe pop them up on a window shelf away from ground level, which is probably the best thing, if your pets go for it. My pets do not care about my plants whatsoever, they ignore them, so that's quite nice. Now when you've got this plant, this is a succulent, so it loves its sun, it does love a good amount of light. All of my plants all sit outside and they get about four hours of direct sun, mostly morning sun, and they are loving life. You can give this guy too much sun, so just be cautious if it's, especially if it's in the harder summer seasons. They can burn, so just be careful, but they do like a lot of light, they're a succulent, so four to six hours of sun, bright light is beautiful for these guys. But the type of light is important, especially if they're a younger plant like some of these. If it's too hard and too bright or too much sun for too long, they can burn and not do so well. They can get very crispy, crinkly leaves, especially if you don't water them, which we'll talk about in a second. But if they're not getting enough light, they can get very leggy, or they can start leaning towards a certain way, and they can topple over quite easily. So try and balance out the amount of light that it gets throughout the day, but again mine gets about four to six hours of sun and it's always outside, and that seems to do quite well. There's a really nice way to tell if your plant is actually getting the right amount of light, because the plant speaks to you. So you will see, and this is probably a bit too much, but you will see a red tinge to the outside of the leaves. This plant here for me sits in much more bright sun than this one does, and I'll show a close-up, but you can definitely see the redder tinge on the leaves. In fact it's probably a little bit sun-stressed overboard. You probably don't need as much, but my main plant outside gets the right amount of sun, and there's just a nice light red tinge to the leaves. So that plant is telling you that it's the perfect amount, it's loving life, and you don't need to touch it. If you're going to keep it inside though, just pop it next to a window so it does get some direct light at some stage, especially morning sun. If you're up north in Europe, America, pop it in a south-facing or west-facing window. Here you can pop it in a north-facing or west-facing window for exactly the same reasons, it's just towards the equator basically. In terms of potting mix, you just want to give it a succulent mix. You can buy succulent mixes in any big box store, I mean you can find them everywhere. I do like to actually make my succulent mix a little bit by mixing a couple of things. It's about 80% of the general succulent potting mix that you buy in a bag, but I also like to add a little bit of horticultural sand to fill in the gaps because it does help the water last a little bit longer in the potting mix. It's only about 10% additional horticultural sand, proper sand, don't just grab it from the beach. And I also sometimes put in a few of a rocky type of potting mix. So for example, you can put lacusepon, lacusepon, lacusepon, somebody please tell me how to say that right because I'm not quite sure. But a little bit of a rocky texture to the potting mix is actually okay because again it gives that soil aeration. You can even try pumice or perlite if you like adding it to the soil, but I like to make mix my own soil. But you can stick to succulent soil as well without any additives honestly because succulent soil seems to work well for succulents. That's what it does, that's what it's meant to do. If you don't have succulent soil or you don't want to go out and buy some just because you've got one jade plant and no other cacti, you can actually use regular soil but pop a heap of perlite or pumice or whatever it is that chunky kind of mix into the potting mix itself so it's again light and airy. You don't want your potting mix holding too much water for too long. These guys hate soggy soil, they hate damp soggy soil and that's because of the way that the plant is laid out because it's thick everywhere so it's really good at holding water. So the thick leaves hold the water if you break it you can see it's very like moist and damp on the leaf itself it's holding a lot of water. The thick stems again also do hold a lot of water so that's the second point and then if you look underneath the soil there's also thick bulbs that hold water as well so it's got three points across the plant which is holding water. So another little video pause if you do like this video and you're getting some value out of it please do just hit that like button and if you haven't subscribed yet please subscribe to my channel and please share all of your stories about your plant journeys. I love seeing people's comments and hearing about how they're looking after plants and I'm still learning about plants I don't think you'll ever stop learning about plants so please add all your comments suggestions tips and tricks in the comments below and let's build this amazing plant community together. So when it comes to watering my plants I water mine about once a month internal and external. Jade plant babies probably a little bit more because they just need a little bit more moisture to keep going. The actual worry for me with succulents is drying them out more. I actually probably don't water them enough because I know that the plant itself holds a lot of water as do cacti so I seem to underwater. You do need to watch the watering so make sure you water it and you drench it thoroughly in one watering and then leave that soil mixture to dry out and then water it again. Make sure it does dry out in between waterings again it doesn't like soggy roots it doesn't like sitting in damp soil. If you're not sure about watering these guys just err on the side of caution a little bit if the leaves start shriveling ever so slightly it's definitely time to water. And then in terms of the pot just really quickly the best advice I can give for this one is a terracotta pot. Terracotta pots are beautiful for not holding too much water in the plant potting mix. So the only reason why this one is in plastic is because it's some cuttings that have just popped in the base and they're doing very well. But I am going to move them into a terracotta pot or a ceramic pot like this one here. I'm not going to keep it in plastic I like the terracotta for the succulents and cacti because it does wick away the water so the potting mix doesn't hold too much moisture. So terracotta pots by far I think are the best for succulents and cacti altogether. In terms of temperature and humidity I mean they are succulents so they do like the warmer weather they like the sun more than they like the cooler months. Although it can withstand cooler months these guys are quite hardy when it comes to being outdoors it just doesn't like staying out in cold for too long so if you've got six months of really cold temperatures it probably won't do so well. Even though it is hardy and it can withstand temperature fluctuations the word withstand is probably the ultimate word there because technically they prefer it in a nice even spot. So once you've found a place in your home near a window somewhere don't move it keep it there as long as you can because it'll be nice and stable keep it where it is don't move it around too much. Right so that's a bit of the environment we've talked about let's talk a little bit more about the care of your and in terms of jade plants when it comes to fertilizer to be honest when it comes to all succulents for me I water quite weekly with fertilizer with a even solution of nitrogen phosphorus and potassium. So if you do look for those numbers on the packaging look for the same number so 10 10 10 5 5 5 20 20 20. I find that they work best for cacti and succulents and I also water it down so I water it with 50 to 75 percent solution of the fertilizer. To be honest you can actually buy cacti specific or succulent specific fertilizers and I use those and they work quite nicely but I find you don't need to fertilize them too often once every couple of months is fine but again if it's not looking too healthy and it's not growing too fast do make sure you are feeding the plant it does need food it's just probably not as much food as some of those other more greedy plants that you might have or diva-ish plants that I have spoken about before who love their fertilizers. And then when it comes to common issues for example with pests the one pest I find that you can get on jade plants is the mealybug oh the ever popular lovely mealybug he's just everywhere isn't he but when you look at a jade plant have a look at the connection between the leaf and the stem because that's where mealybugs seem to hide but it is a juicy plant so mealybugs love a little bit of uh succulent plant if they can find one especially the jade plant it has a lot of moisture to suck from. Right now let's talk about propagation techniques for this baby and again this is one of the favorite things that I love about this plant I couldn't even get it wrong when I first started in plants and I was getting a lot of things wrong back then I can tell you right now most of the plants I bought when I first started all died on me except the beautiful jade plant which is just a very hardy easy plant once I did a bit of research on how to look after it. So the first way you can do it is just buy a leaf all you need to do is break a leaf off or find leaf like this one that was broken off accidentally or by broken off right at the tip of the leaf make sure it's not cut in half and then when you're propagating a leaf you can take a few you can take like 15 or 20 if you like and then just make sure that the very tip is actually just below the surface of the soil in that new pot or plate or whatever it is that you're going to use and then from there you just need to keep that pot a little bit damp don't put too much water in the plate or the pot of your propagation pot because it doesn't like to be sitting in too much water remember the leaf is still holding a lot of water on its own but you just want to keep it lightly damp because the new plant will actually grow out of the base just like this one which again is a leaf that just dropped into the pot of one of the big plants that I have and as you can see it started growing out of the tip or the base of the the plant leaf so you can do it that way for me the reason why I love this pot is even an easier way to do it and that is you just cut one of the stems off and yeah plonk it in some succulent mix you can add some rooting hormone to the base just make sure that that stem once you cut it let it dry out let it callus over so you don't want it to get root rot or anything like that once that end is dry the part that you've cut plonk that stem directly into the succulent mix that you've got and then make sure you treat it like you would most other jade plants with a little bit more on the watering side to keep it a little bit more damp all of these cuttings that I have around me are literally propagated by me cutting a stem and plonking it in to a potting mix including this one which I honestly didn't think half of the plants would grow and there's one two three four five I just stuck them all in one might disappear but honestly they seem to do quite well just from snipping the stem and do just make sure it sits deeply into that soil that stem goes basic into the soil so it does give it a bit of room for the roots to grow out of the stem but also you know um gives it what it helps it stand up kind of thing but honestly the best way to propagate any plant I love it because it's so super simple you don't have to worry too much about uh you know humidity domes or sphagnum moss or anything like that you just stick it back into succulent soil keep it damp wait for it to dry out as soon as it dries out water it again but super simple I love it propagating jade plants is the nicest easiest way to do it and you can do this with children especially if you're going to do it through the leaf propagation technique because there are no scissors involved with that one so you just pop off a leaf put it into the new potting mix the plate or the bowl whatever it is lay them down and keep misting it and spraying a little bit of water over the top so it's a really good way for kids to actually learn a little bit about plants especially jade plants so whether you're just starting out with a new jade plant or you've had a jade plant for a while I hope there's a few little nuances and tips and tricks in this video that will help you feel more confident with your plant because honestly they are one of the best plants to have around and can look beautiful and a simple elegant statement piece in your home and who knows this guy might become a family heirloom in one way or another down the track thanks very much for joining me if you did enjoy this video all about how to care after a plant there is another super simple plant that I really want you to have a go at and that is a beautiful peace lily I have a video all about that with its care tips and tricks here so please do go and watch that video next thanks for watching I'll see you in the next video have a week full of leaves love and laughter see you later