Jade Plant

Crassula ovata, commonly known as jade plant, lucky plant or good luck plant, is a plant belonging to succulent category. They have rubber like shiny and thick leaves with soft woody stems. Jade plants have a miniature, tree like appearance that makes them suitable for making bonsai trees. They’re also excellent air purifiers which makes them ideal as an indoor plant. They reach about three feet or more when grown indoors. Let’s see how to care for it.

How to care for jade plant ?

Preparation of soil

As jade plant is a succulent, it requires a well drained nutritious soil. You can use one part garden soil, one part river sand and one part compost or vermicompost. Try to add diluted organic liquid fertilizer such as sea weed fertilizer or compost tea once a month.

Water requirements

Jade plants are succulents, so they don’t do well in constantly moist soil as they store water in their leaves. Let the top layer dry out between waterings. This basically mea

ns that you have to water them once 2 to 3 weeks under indoor conditions, but make sure to check them regularly.

Sunlight

Generally speaking, just like other succulents, jade plant also needs at least 5-6 hours of proper sunlight. If given too much, it may leads to browning of leaves and if too less, it may results in large leaf size with fragile or weak stems. So, try to put them near a window sill where it gets sufficient sunlight.

Fertilizer

You can use diluted compost tea, vermicompost or liquid sea weed fertilizer once a month in order to get a healthy plant. Repot the plant once a year with new soil mix. You’ll definitely get a good growing jade plant.

Pruning

Dead leaves and twigs can be pruned or removed as the plant grows. You can use clean scissors for pruning as it helps in giving the plant a new and fresh look as well as in preventing fungal growth. The jade plant is now a new alien species for the Chinese flora, as it is quite invasive.

How to propagate jade plant ?

The plant is extremely easy to propagate from stem cuttings. Just take 3 to 4 inches of healthy plant cuttings with leaves. Remove the lower 4-5 leaves and insert the cuttings in moist soil mix or sand. The roots will start to develop within a month. You can also propagate them in water. Transplant the small rooted cuttings in garden pots of your choice.

It’s a lovely plant for anyone who’s starting indoors and is a beginner in the plant world. It’s also a super cheap plant which you can multiply numerous times.