Melissa, if you do nothing more, convince yourself to get out of the habit of watering succulents on a regular schedule. You may be overwatering, but who knows? When the top (full) inch of the potting media is dry, water the plant, and water it thoroughly, until plenty of water runs through the drainage holes. Keep in mind that without a lot of top-growth, your jade won't require an awful lot of water. Transpiration through the leaves is how the water is used up. What conditions are you growing that jade in? Your high temperatures may be a factor in that no new growth is showing.

drdawg said:Melissa, if you do nothing more, convince yourself to get out of the habit of watering succulents on a regular schedule.

I water my succulents on a regular schedule (mostly weekly) year round and view that attention as an important aspect of their care. Indoors there is no reason to ever vary watering frequency unless temperatures vary significantly. Of course you want to water when the soil goes dry or almost dry, not when the calendar tells you to. But consistency in watering is the best way to get your succulents in a groove and keep them there.

I realize I'm late to the conversation but I would think that more light would serve the plant in the OP better than pruning. Jade plants can take all the sun you can give them (avoid drastic changes without gradual accommodation) when temperatures are not prohibitively high.

Since I don't know her growing conditions, Baja, I don't know whether a set schedule is what is best for that plant or any other plant for that matter. I don't grow many succulents but those I do are never on a set watering schedule. I have over 1000 tropical plants and I am always watering something, every single day. I guess that would certainly be called "consistency in watering". The succulents are never on that kind of schedule.

Whatever works, of course! I'm just saying what works for me. Based on my experience, the life and death of various plants over the years, the results of tinkering and error, my advice would be the opposite of yours. To the extent I grow almost exclusively succulents. The tropical ones tend to be more amenable to the type of daily watering you are describing, or perhaps the kind of natural rainfall you get there in the summer (which is when we get none and I become the rain god for 4-7 months).

I need to do the "drought-God" dance. Before I fell in love with tropicals, I had a passion for cacti. I had a huge greenhouse dedicated to them and had some, for example a saguaro, that were 8-10' tall. I collected that saguaro, as well as dozens of other varieties of cacti, in the deserts of New Mexico, Arizona, and California. That saguaro was only a 2-3' tall pup. Two hurricanes finally destroyed that greenhouse and I never grew cacti again.

I have my Jade in full sun. Over the month since I pruned it, I've moved it gradually from shade to sun. But it's 106 here today, and has been in the high 90's-low 100's for several weeks. I thought watering once a week was prudent, but I never stopped to think that succulents and cacti grow wild in the Southwest, with non-stop hot weather and no rain. I'll make sure to check the top inch of soil before I water again. I *know* that you shouldn't water on a schedule, but when it gets this hot I think it *has* to need water. I've been checking all my other plants (eg, lantana, euonymus, mandevilla, pentas) with a moisture meter, and it seems to correlate well with what I feel with my finger. I also have a red filigree-leaf Japanese maple that I never fail to water every day, and it's thriving (in the shade, of course). All my plants are in a gravelled bed that faces southwest, so I may tend to overwater.
I am a little concerned that some of the jade's leaves are getting brown areas, which I believe means they're burning. What's the best place for it? The nature of my garden is that everything gets sun until about noon. I have a 9' patio umbrella for those plants that have to have afternoon shade. I end up moving the pots around to get the sun or shade they need. I know my growing conditions are less than ideal, but they're in the only place my landlord will let me put them. Maybe I should put up another umbrella.

Edit: I just took a very close look at the plant (with my glasses on!), and there are three very very tiny places with new growth. It's not coming at the ends of the branches, from the leaves below it the way they usually grow, but in places along the trunks. It's soaking wet, though. It probably won't need water for a month, if I didn't kill it already this morning. But, maybe there's some room for hope!

One last question: do you fertilize succulents? I fertilize once a month, but have never done the jade. A little SuperThrive probably wouldn't hurt either.

Sorry this is so long!

Jade plants do not come from the hot desert. They do not enjoy very high temperatures and are basically impossible to grow outdoors in places like Phoenix. It's not so much the daytime heat (one problem for sure) but actually periods when it does not cool down at night, since nighttime is when they "catch their breath" so to speak.

msandsm said:I *know* that you shouldn't water on a schedule, but when it gets this hot I think it *has* to need water.

Again, I take exception to the first part (I believe the opposite, see above).... and actually would agree that hot temps generally call for more frequent watering. The reason for this is that higher temperatures (esp. with low humidity) cause moisture to evaporate and leave the container faster, and they cause the plant to lose water faster and thus need to drink more. The actual difference is something you can assess by checking out the soil with a moisture meter or your finger. When the soil is going dry, it's time to water. Don't assume too much, though, beyond what you can confirm with your own observations. Another thing you can keep an eye on is how much water the container absorbs when you water it... I like to use a squirt bottle that has a very consistent flow rate and allows me to get a good sense of how much water I'm using just by counting.

Using similar logic relating to temperature and humidity, one might need to water less often when the weather is cold or overcast. The regularity of your watering schedule must have some relation to the weather. Since we live in a very mild climate I don't have to adjust the schedule much, and it runs about every week like clockwork for most of the year (when there is no rain). Sometimes that's long enough that almost all the plants go bone dry, other times they might still be moist, but on average it works.

Does your plant have red edges on the leaves? That's a good sign it's getting enough light. Brown on the leaves is another matter and may have to do with the extreme heat you're experiencing. When in doubt in extreme heat situations, put your plant in bright shade. But for what it's worth, the kindest sun of the day is morning sun, because it's not as strong as overhead (midday) sun or accompanied by the uncomfortable heat of afternoon sun.

You can fertilize as often as you want. The question is more the dose than the frequency... avoid the recommended megadose called for by most commercial fertilizer makers. Try a quarter or a tenth that much for starters, on a semi-regular basis. I like to give a very low dose every week when plants are in full swing.

We tropical plant growers have long gone by the phrase: "Weakly-weekly".

I think the Jade will be one of those plants I have to move around according to the sun's movement. As for fertilizing, I had been following the instructions on the bottle: once, full strength, once a month. (I know, me and my schedules!) But my nursery said I should use half-strength every other week, so I've been doing that. What would you consider a "low dose"? The bottle calls for 1 Tbsp per gallon. It's Master Bloom 2-10-10.

And thanks for all the help. This is only my second summer with a garden, and I still consider myself a novice. I'm learning, though!

Typically, water-soluble fertilizer will have a 1 teaspoon per gallon rate. I will reduce this to 1/2 tsp. per gallon in the spring and summer and 1/4 tsp. per gallon in the fall the winter. I never really stop fertilizing my plants (other than dormant plumeria) but the vast majority of what I grow are tropicals, not succulents.

Those doses sounds about right to me for a liquid fertilizer. I use 1/2 tsp. per 5 liters (about a gallon) of a 7-9-5 or 6-4-4 formulation.

drdawg: you mentioned in a post that you didn't know my growing conditions, so I'm including a couple of pictures. They were taken at about 9:00 in the morning, so the plants on the left are in full sun. As the sun moves, those plants, and some others, are under the umbrella and get some shade. That leaves the ones on the right in full sun for most of the day. I move several plants around according to their light needs. The last pic is my landing, where all the plants get full shade. As I'm in zone 9b, the heat is high no matter where the plants are.

I think you have a good plan going, Melissa. Again, I am not only in a completely different climate, but I am also growing completely different plants. I think I will leave the comments to y'all who are into succulents and cacti.

Melissa, I get new growth on my jades when our temps cool down. During our very hot days, they just fatten their stems, hoarding the water, trying to survive the heat. Or during late winter to early Spring that is also active time for them to drop old leaves and slowly push out the new growth.

I have been away this August, and it is one of my few plants that have endured very well our days of heat wave here, since it has ably stored up water in its stem, branches and leaves.

Baja_Costero said:Jade plants do not come from the hot desert. They do not enjoy very high temperatures and are basically impossible to grow outdoors in places like Phoenix. It's not so much the daytime heat (one problem for sure) but actually periods when it does not cool down at night, since nighttime is when they "catch their breath" so to speak.

That explains a lot of what happens with the rather marginal at best plants I grow here in Phoenix during the winter and spring. They do fine until the nights stop cooling down in the late spring and then die out completely.

And then with the hardier plants that manage to make it through the summer, most of them seem to stop growing during the summer, and once fall comes, they briefly go through a second growth spurt for the year.

I focus mainly on edible plants, and the only ones that seem to love growing in Phoenix all summer long are purslane, basella, and Egyptian Spinach (and its closest relative-- okra).

Oooh, that would explain why mine don't seem to like summer as much as the rest of the year. It rarely goes below 75 here from June-Aug, most nights are 78-80 for the low.

For the past month our temperatures have been between 64° and 77°F, mostly below 74° actually. So your coolest August night may have been warmer than our hottest August day. Makes sense that the jades here would never actually rest (that I could tell anyway) during the summer.