I'd doubt it. Jatropha is a pretty tough plant and stores a lot of reserves in it's stems. If the plant was healthy before the trimming then it should come back as your weather warms.

Thank you for responding. It just got really cold so that will set it back a bit!

No ignition yet. Maybe it is dead. If it is, so be it.

No need to give up on it yet. I'd be surprised if it was dead. There's a number of Jatropha species and their tolerances would vary. But from what I know of Jatropha a pruning like that would only be a slight hiccup. There'd have to be something else happening for it to die.

Thanks for the reassurance. I think my squirrels are starting to gnaw on the ends of the branches....but other than that......

Any sprouting on your jatropa yet?

Did you scrape the bark to see if there was green under it?

Please post back.

Jane

@jerzeegirl (FL zone 9B)

Bump

Speaking of Jatropha... Hurricane Idalia winds on August 29-30 whipped my 2 around for hours, especially the taller one 3 feet from my house (East side) with flowers just above 1-story roof line... no branch broke, some flowers survived.

This is the plant that many years ago I severely cut (like jerzeegirl's but left twice as high) in hopes that it would branch out and produce blooms before reaching the roof line... it did regrow but without branching... just shot straight up again to the roofline, reaching the sun before branching.

So I bought a new small Jatropha and added it in front of the tall ones but 3 yards away where it receives more sun and feeds butterflies, esp. Swallowtails.

I love Jatrophas!