I know I have posted about this plant before, but I can't locate it. It is a C. ovata cv obliqua. Or however you say it. It is certainly resilient.

Last October I repotted. The leaves were wrinkly and nothing was making it happy. It was in a plastic pot with gritty mix that had broken down after almost 3 years. The roots looked fried -

So I cleaned off the roots and removed anything that was dead. I repotted it in a gritty mix with NAPA, grit and bark. We've discussed on here about how the NAPA seems to be different than it was in the past. So this was undoubtedly a mistake. I now have found Turface and I no longer use NAPA in my mix.

After appearing to rebound a little, the leaves still look wrinkly. So out of the mix he came again. After 9 months, there were no roots!

After washing -

It looks like soil on the stump, but I think it is rotted 'stuff.' My mix had no soil in it. And look how shrunken the base of the stem is!

Nothing was slimy, stinky or soft. But just looking at it, I could tell something was wrong. Roots are not going to grow from this, so I got out my trusty blade for surgery.

And surprise - it was rot!

I have to wonder if the rot was present last October. In slicing it away, I was pleasantly surprised that it hadn't spread up the trunk too far.

I found good tissue just below that node. So I took an extra sliver off, dusted with some cinnamon and will let it callus. (pictured in the sun, but resting in the shade now)

I am surprised the rot didn't spread more and I am really surprised how comparatively good the leaves look after all those months of not getting any water. This jade does get air roots, but this one has a lot of them. Maybe the humidity sustained it.

We always recommend looking at the roots of problem plants. Look closely - because I don't think that I did. Too bad, because this guy could have recovered during the dry cool months last fall. Now I have to hope he can hold on during the hot and humid summer.