How to Move Your Jade Plants Outside for Summer Without Killing Them

Hey I'm Jeff and welcome back to another video. Today I will be erecting a plant shelf made out of these cinder blocks as well as these pine boards. I want to make a nice DIY shelf for my cacti and succulents. Plus I want to show you how to transition your succulents, specifically a jade plant from indoors to outdoors just so it doesn't get any leaf burn. You want to slowly acclimate it to full sun. So let's check it out. And what I first did is put them in full shade. So I placed some underneath these little planter boxes because this gets eastern morning light. So it receives light from the east. This is a south facing backyard and way over here is the west. So I have them or I started them right in this corner. And the reason why you want to start in full shade is because the plant not only has to adjust to the higher light but also the heat. Jades love high temperatures as well as full sun. So if you brought them outside and just threw them in full sun you're definitely going to scorch the leaves. But this is just a nice easy transition and I left it here for about a week and then I just slowly bring them out each day until they are receiving or until they have acclimated to full sun conditions. And you can see these leaves are getting some nice sun stress on them. So just for comparison reasons for natural light indoors compared to outdoors. I'm just going to use my light meter at the foot candle setting and it's times by 10 just because it's going to be a higher number. So I'm going to place my sensor right at the leaf and directed to the sun. So it's around 4,600 foot candles which is very high light. Now I'm going to take this plant as well as the meter outside and we'll test it in outdoor sunlight. So now when I bring it outside these plants are getting some morning eastern sunlight. So I'm going to place it right there and then let's place the sensor. Watch out right in the direction of the sun right there. And it's getting around 12,000 foot candles. So kind of right at the leaves pointing at the sun it's 12,000 foot candles. So it's almost three times more light I guess more light intensity outside compared to inside and it's the exact same sun. That just goes to show you the difference between natural light indoors versus outdoors. It's way more intense outside and you see these leaves are getting some nice sun stressing on them. So I just thought I'd show a quick little comparison from indoor natural light to having bright light outside in the morning from where is it right there the eastern sun. Now before you even bring them outside you want to make sure that the nighttime temperatures do not go below 10 degrees celsius and I believe that's 50 degrees fahrenheit. You want it above those temperatures consistently like if it goes maybe a couple degrees lower than that that's fine but once you start getting into you know kind of like the five six degrees celsius then you run the risk of these getting cold exposures. Now a couple things that people had said right away is how do you deal with pests outside. As you can see or maybe you can't there is some spider webs already. Now that doesn't necessarily mean it's spider mites or anything like that just a regular spider might have taken home to to this plant. You can see this little seed is also stuck to it. So yeah my plants indoors have mealybugs they're spider mites all that kind of stuff so I kind of jokingly say that bringing them outside will probably do them better just because there are some predatory bugs like if there's thrips there might be ladybugs and stuff that end up eating those soft-bodied pests. So bringing them outside you're definitely going to introduce them to pests but once you start thinking about bringing them in for the fall then what I like to do is just get an insecticidal soap, spray them down a couple times over the course of say like a week, give them a good watering, rinse them off and then bring them inside. Now the big difference between caring for your plant outdoors compared to indoors is not only is the plant receiving higher light more light but it's also a lot hotter so that heat plays into it as well so you're probably going to have to water more frequently outside than indoors. So inside during the summer I probably water maybe once every 10 to 14 days. Outside here depending on the conditions the sunlight the temperature you might have to water every couple days or maybe once every five days something like that but just pay attention to the leaves. If you can fold them or bend them like a taco like this one right here it's getting a little bit soft this one needs to be watered. Now if they are nice and plump and firm like this one this one does not need water. Now for the golem jade it's a little bit more difficult but if you can slightly bend or if they feel a little squishy then it needs water. This one is quite firm and plump so it doesn't need any water and same with this one on the lower leaves these ones are nice and thick and plump so this one doesn't need water however I am going to give this one some water because you can see the leaves are a little bit bendable. So I'm going to give this one some water so I'm just going to grab my garden hose here and now for watering outside I spray off the entire plant because I want to clean those leaves give it a good thorough soaking. Water will not harm the leaves outside because there's wind there's a breeze it will help dry off the leaves quicker. If it's in full sun then maybe just throw it in the shade for a couple hours until those leaves dry off but otherwise just give it a good soaking here. I'll let that drain out the bottom but yeah you're not going to hurt the plant by spraying it down like this. Now the problem with water sitting on the leaves indoors is there's no like natural airflow or like air circulation like there is outside so that's when you start to run into when the water sits on the leaves you get like fungal or bacterial issues and and powdery mildew and that kind of stuff but outside you can spray it off no problem and just let that soak through until it comes out the bottom and I'm just going to soak it maybe a couple more times here. Want some? You want some Taffy? Okay watch out. So you can soak it a couple times and then just let it drain through let it air dry put it in the shade if there's uh if it's in full sun for a couple hours and that's it and that's what I did with this cactus here as well it does have mealy bugs and I just tossed it outside looks like it's got some rot at the top here so this one it's uh it's not looking the greatest so I just threw it out here we'll see how it does over the summer and perhaps I will propagate this one so I put it in full shade last week I can now bring it out into some higher light now I'm going to start on this shelf and then I'll bring the rest of my cacti and succulents outside so I will put it on this side of the fence just so it gets some morning sunlight and then the goal is to place it up against my house here in full sun throughout the summer so I found an example picture online of what I wanted to make so I think all I'm going to do is just stack up these cinder blocks so that they are like a three tier type shelf I can add these shelves in between these grooves like that and then I might you know cut off a section like this and then just place it in between two cinder blocks and then have the shelf or a shelf on top like that so that's the plan I'm going to cut these boards to size see what it looks like like I said after a few weeks of getting some eastern morning direction light then I will move the shelf over to a full sun south exposure so that's the plan just going to fire this puppy up so plug your ears okay let's test it out is it going to fit in the slot oh perfect that is butter now I also just finished cutting four of these individual little boards and all I'm going to do is just lift up these cinder blocks and then put them in something like that so that there is an extra shelf for the plant to sit on I always think about selling my table saw because I use it like maybe once every five years and then I get a project like this and I think to myself I'm glad I kept it so never sell any tools because you will always use them now I'm just going to place this one through that hole and here's the masterpiece it did look a little bit better online I'm not going to lie but when you bring a plant over like this bam look at that that is that is great so yeah I'm going to bring out the rest of my plants and put them on the shelves I might keep my jades down here for now I'm just going to slide them right over here maybe something like that this guy once it fills up then the shelf will obviously look much better and then this one you can see there's spider webs on here already not too concerned so something like that okay it actually looks way better when there's plants on it but I just want to show you guys this is mealybugs that's what they look like little white fuzz I'm going to oh yeah look at them I've never had mealybugs like this like that's that's ridiculous so I did bring a spray bottle with 70 percent isopropyl alcohol I put maybe 10 percent of the alcohol and 90 percent water and then all I'm doing is spraying off the plant from top to bottom just like that and I'm going to rotate it so that I get all those little critters out of there just like that let it strip down into the soil I'm going to give this one or give all of these cacti some water so disgusting so that's what I mean like every one of my plants has mealybugs right now and I I've never had it until like this year I guess maybe last year started now I really haven't bought too many plants but what typically happens is when you buy produce like bananas mealybugs come in to your house on produce such as bananas and stuff like that so yeah it's not only just from like bringing new plants home but food that you bring from the store and that sort of thing it does have mealybugs on them as well so I'm going to spray these down with the water and alcohol solution then I'm going to give them a good thorough watering with the hose now because it's outside I am not going to be keeping the saucer on the plant I'm just going to let it drain out the bottom like so just give them a good soak and this will be a good spot for them to transition to like I said not only the heat but to full sun at some point so just let that drip down like I said these jades don't need water so I'm not going to give them anything just going to spray it down like that when I first brought these ones outside I'm hoping that they don't get blown over especially this one because it is a little bit top heavy so yeah and the shelf itself it's pretty stable it's not going to fall over so this one always flowers for me surprise it doesn't have any right now but it gets some beautiful pink flowers at the top like that so the sun's not out right now so I'm just going to spray all of these plants down just get rid of these mealybugs and once we start seeing some ladybugs and and that kind of thing they should take care of the mealybug issue but that doesn't eliminate root mealybug root mealybugs pardon me mealybugs that are down in the soil I might have to do like a hydrogen peroxide soak or something but that not only kills the good microbes and stuff in the soil but also the bad so I don't want to kill all the good stuff in there but in order to get rid of the root mealies I might I might have to do that I'm going to have to go find some more cacti to fill up this shelf but I'll definitely provide some updates once these are fully acclimated then I can move them over to full sun full south sun exposure so I think that's going to be pretty much it for this video if you have any comments or questions please leave it down below in the comment section thanks for watching all my videos take care everyone bye