HI GILL

Nice job, luv the trunks.

do you find trimming this time of the year has any advantage to waiting till spring.

Richard

Agreed nice trunks, and the development you've done is very attractive!

ez

Richard, Ez, hi there. I was bored and fed up so I thought I need to get my scalpel out and to something serious with it, that's all!

Gill UK

hey Gill how old are those jades, truncks look nice n think - been toying with the idea to getting one but never got round to it as I was going to grow one as a house plant but not sure if I have a sunny enough windowsill lol - I think these look great plants when mature and your two are fine examples for sure :)

Beautiful plants! I hope to one day have a jade with trunks that nice. Mine aren't even as fat as a pencil. Maybe I need to start bigger ;)

what's the trick to fatten the trunk, or does it occur naturally with age?

Gill you grow some beautiful jades! Would you mind sharing some advice on how you approach trimming/designing ?

Phil, they are both rooted from cuttings of around 4-6inches in length back in 1998, and they flower regularly each year. They and the other jades all live permanently in the g/h year round, as I have far too many to have indoors. No real trick to fatten them up, just time! Oh, I suppose basically let them grow with even longer branches than you really want and then cut the long growths back to let new branches form on the thicker than usual structure you will have left behind....does that make sense?

sunb75, maybe as you say, start with a fatter cutting and grow it well in a gritty mix, feed fairly regularly and give as much sun as you can once it's rooted and accustomed to the sun.....that's what works for me anyway!

minty, have struggled with pruning them as I couldn't see into the future as to what I wanted them to end up like. Anyway, with some useful advise from the good folks on here I had a go and am so far pleased with what they have turned out like....whether they are correct, as in aesthetic terms, and do they really look like mini versions of real life trees......I don't really know, but hey, like em! I was also advised to grow them with one main trunk as in real life, but that was after these had developed several. The main trunk needs to be the highest point in the tree then you go on to develop the side branches which should taper towards their ends and then the secondary branches come off these, tapering as they go. So you can see that selecting the right shaped cutting in the first place goes a long way in growing a correctly balanced tree later on. Hope this helps.

I'll post some more pics of the rest of my Jade family....but it won't be till Monday, ttfn.

Check out a couple of my older posts entitled 'large Jade whack#1', 'large Jade whack#2', and 'survival in the g/h this winter', I think that was what it was called.

Gill UK

Wow Gill! Those are beautiful. Nice thick trunks. I hope mine will get that big... one day, right? This is the last one I have for now. I gave my others away to my mother and sister-in-law who have houses and more space than me. This picture was a few weeks back. It has put on much growth since then. I have been debating on trimming that new growth coming up from the base. What would you do? Yours are so beautiful I would appreciate your advice.

Deva

If you cut a jade back to a stump with no leaves, will it back bud?

Rob

Rob

It will; there are few threads with photos of completely 'naked' trunks with after photos and beautiful leaves and branches growing. Here is just one, you can get more if you search for 'whacking jades' or 'chopping jades' or similar:

whacked jade before and after

Any ideas where to get purchase a jade with a nice trunk? I've looked locally with no luck :-/

Deva, if it were mine I would chop of those bottom growths as the consensus is you get a more natural looking miniature tree with it just having the one main trunk. Those would obviously grow up, compete with the main trunk and make it into a multi stemmed affair that in most people's eyes, doesn't look natural, but I guess in the end, beauty is in the eye of the beholder! (Or the person holding the scalpel in this case). Thanks for the compliments, mine started off small and with just one stem each back in 199whateveritwas, so yes, yours will get there too!

Gill UK

calling DR greenclaws, calling DR greenclaws.

do you make house calls.

Richard

Hi Richard. Ha-ha, I'm in Bristol at the moment so house calls are out for the time being! I'm with all the family as we are off to see the World Cup rugby match in Cardiff on Sunday.....one of my sons in law with me is a Dr, but I'm definitely not!

I'm sure it was Christopher that gave me some good info on how to start to prune my 2big jades. He advised to trim off all the tiniest branches right back to where they join the larger ones. I did it in 'tentative stages' as I was unsure of where and how much to trim off. I de-leafed the one plant first so I could see what I was doing. Then I trimmed again, posted another pic to get valuable opinions and then chopped further back till was happy with the results. Far better to do it slowly rather than whack away like a madman, or woman! You can always go in and cut off more, difficult to stick it back on though isn't it? Stand back and check from all angles till you're happy with the developing shape.

Difficult to see at the mo, but it does appear to have a good overall shape under the leaves. Keep one main trunk as the highest point as in a natural tree. Could well be that one that's slightly higher to the right of the pic? The bottom branches should be the thickest and tapering towards their tips, others getting thinner as they get nearer the apex. Making sense, hope so?

Gill UK

Richard, don't know maybe Spring would be better for this, but if you completely defoliate and take some n@ked pictures of it people could propound on what else to cut. If no other benefit from the exercise, it should at least grow back out with increased ramification.

ez

hi ez

I have no problem waiting till spring or doing it now.

I was just giving Gill a hard time because the thought of a bored woman with a scalpel sends

shivers up my spine. I'm just glad she is in the uk. lol

I'll start a new post about whacking jades so as not to hijack GILLS

Richard

We are getting close to Halloween...

I love these Jades.

Josh

Breathnez;

N@ked pictures? I don't think that is allowed on this site. :)

Christopher