PRUNING CRASSULA / JADE PLANT / MONEY PLANT

I bought a Crassula Ovata a year or two ago and grow it in my unheated garden room during the warmer months.  Over winter, I bring it inside my home.  It's a lovely plant, however, over winter it became rather 'leggy'; there were long shoots which were very healthy and green but the plant became top heavy.  It wasn't what I wanted and I needed more growth lower down.  So I pruned it.  It's not hard to do; it's the same principle as pruning anything really, just cutting off above a leaf joint.  Within a month it was sprouting new shoots from the main stem and also from where stems had been pruned. 

Pruned Crassula ovata

I do want it to grow into a good-sized plant (they can get seriously big, you know) but a manageable size.  I also don't want it to look like a bonsai but I do want it to be a good shape.  In the image below, you can see new shoots appearing from the main stem.

Pruned Crassula ovata with new shoots appearing from stems

Crassula ovata, like many succulents, is easy to propagate too and I have used two methods: I stuck a couple of the cuttings into a separate pot, and I also did a couple of leaf propagations - the leaf propagations are really easy because all I did was to leave a leaf or two lying on the surface of the gritty soil, with the base in close contact with the soil, and nature does all the rest. 

Crassula ovata leaf with new plant sprouting from the base of it

You know, I used to have one of these a decade or so ago and it grew to a good size, a very small shrub, and it would produce lovely little white flowers all over it on a regular basis.  Sadly, I had to leave it behind when I emigrated abroad for a decade.  So, I have wanted to replace it ever since.




RHS information on Crassulas (external link)




You can kill succulents easily with kindness, ie overwatering.  I think they are a bit like cacti and should be watered with caution and quite sparingly.  Don't let them sit in water and they must be grown in freely draining soil.  Mine is in a John Innes compost with a lot of gritty gravel chucked in for good measure!

Dish of succulents grown in gravelly soil in a shallow dish, in bright sunlight near

a conservatory window.  Crassula ovata is shown right at the back.  It soon outgrew that dish,

and became a small 'tree' often covered with little white flowers.