🍃 The jade shedding leaves in winter
A worked example: this case follows the usual course of the problem and is not a diary of one particular plant.
How it arrived
An old jade on a cool windowsill, still on its generous summer watering schedule deep into December. Leaves going soft and translucent, then dropping at a touch; one main branch wrinkled at the base and darkening.
The wrong first guess
Reading soft, thin leaves as hunger and adding feed. In winter a jade wants the opposite of more: cool, bright, and nearly dry is its rest state.
The actual diagnosis
Early overwatering rot in winter dormancy - cold wet soil around a succulent that had stopped drinking. The darkening branch base was rot already inside the wood.
The rescue, step by step
- Stopped watering entirely and let the pot go properly dry.
- Cut the darkening branch back to clean, firm tissue - the cut face had to show no brown ring.
- Let the healthy cut pieces callous for several days, then set them in barely-damp gritty mix as cuttings - jade roots from almost anything.
- Resumed watering only weeks later, lightly, and only after the soil had been bone dry.
Timeline
Where it ended up
The parent survived minus a major branch, and the branch survived as four new plants. Between them, more jade than before - just not the tree it was.
The lesson
Succulents run on a seasonal clock. The watering that keeps a jade happy in July is the watering that rots it in December - winter is for light, cool and neglect.
More case files
🪴 Plant first-aid kit
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