Prune the Jade Plant once in autumn for a beautiful shape, plump branches and strong leaves, and turn one pot into many

The Jade Plant (Portulacaria afra) is a perennial evergreen succulent shrub in the purslane family, also called the elephant bush. Its branches are upright, its form is elegant, and its leaves are emerald green. Once it grows to a certain height, it needs to be pruned into a beautiful shape, along with wiring. If a potted Jade Plant at home is not pruned for a long time, it will grow rather messy; the more you prune it, the better it grows.

Grow the Jade Plant in October and prune it like this for faster growth, a prettier shape, and one pot becomes many！

You can prune it into a shape that suits your own taste. The common styles include: formal upright, curved trunk, slanting trunk, cascade, and so on.

If those pruned shapes seem too complicated, you can simply give it one clean cut, leaving more branches on one side and fewer on the other, cutting it into a scalene triangle, which looks very fresh and attractive.

You can also prune it freely according to your own ideas, then tie it with string or the like to create a one-of-a-kind shape.

The best time to prune is in spring or autumn, especially autumn. At this time the temperature is mild, neither too high nor too low, and the sunlight is not particularly strong. This is the growing season for the Jade Plant, so after pruning the cuts heal more easily.

When pruning, just make sure its main stem is not damaged. Keep the thick branches and prune the thin ones as you like. Cut off leggy branches and overly dense branches.

After pruning, loosen the soil for it, add some leaf mold to the flower pot, and you can also water it with some organic fertilizer solution, such as diluted animal manure, bone meal, cake fertilizer water, and so on.

Do not waste the branches you cut off, because a small section, 10 cm is enough, can be inserted directly into gritty sandy soil, or into vermiculite and peat soil.

Insert it to a depth of about 2 cm, then spray the soil moist and place it in a spot with bright, indirect light and good ventilation. It roots very quickly, and the survival rate of the cuttings is very high. After pruning one pot, you can propagate several pots; as long as you have enough empty flower pots at home, you can grow a dozen pots or more.

When growing the Jade Plant normally, apart from shading it from harsh sun in summer, you can give it more sunlight in autumn. This makes the plant grow more robust and lush and improves its cold resistance.