I have quite a few lovely older jades that have been doing well for a number of years. Indoors in winter out in summer. This year after I moved sothem outside some of the leaves have started to turn yellow and drop. any advise?
I have wondered about this - I got carried away with our early summer. Thanks. I have moved to a drier and shadier spot.
If, or when you want to maintain a given size, this is the time of year when you would defoliate them, trim the tips back to where you want them, and grow an entire new canopy of leaves. The leaves would be cut off at the base of the leaf, leaving the petiole which guards the bud in the axil. It won't look pretty. The ends of the branches would be trimmed back to a bud (or not) one (anticipated) large cluster of leaves shorter than your goal length. You could repot at the same time, removing ~2/3 of large, anchor roots in favor of keeping lots of hairy feeder roots. To keep a plant for long periods, like the rest of your life, you need to keep it in-bounds as opposed to suddenly finding yourself with a plant too big for its place where you have to butcher it to put it right. Maintenance. Some each year, some every few years. Jade leaves last more than one year, but for plants that have leaves that only last a little longer than a year you want to go into the indoors season with new leaves that will last longer than they will be indoors. Removing (as above) all leaves after the initial flush is mature, usually by mid-to-late June, forces the plant to grow a new set that will last longer than winter. Otherwise, the old set begins dropping ~late March to April which irks most housekeepers. As long as it's the inner leaves, that's normal, but still irritating.
