Jade Plant
Crassula ovata
also called crassula ovata
A hot bright window suits it better than it does almost any houseplant, and a spring pruning is what thickens it into shape.
Spacing & sowing
- Plant spacing
- 17.7 in
- In-row spacing
- 17.7 in
- Between rows
- 22 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
Growing
- Type
- Houseplant · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Sunlight
- Bright light with some direct sun; a south- or west-facing sill is ideal.
- Watering
- Water thoroughly, then wait until the soil is bone dry before the next.
- Feeding
- Half-strength feed once a month, spring and summer only.
- Frost tolerant
- No
- Flowering
- December
- Pruning
- Shape it in spring, pinching young shoots back to keep it bushy.
Through the year
- Mar–Dec Spring Growth
- Dec–Dec Flowering
- Jan–Mar Flowering
Pests & problems
Garden allies
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Hoverfly Syrphidae
Bee-mimicking flies whose legless larvae graze aphid colonies clean while the adults pollinate. A ribbon of shallow, nectar-rich flowers kept in bloom all season recruits wave after wave of them.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) Coccinellidae
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
- Beneficial nematodes Steinernema & Heterorhabditis spp.Hunts Vine weevil
Microscopic worms watered onto damp soil that hunt down soil-dwelling grubs and release a bacterium that kills them within days. Timing is the whole thing: warm, damp soil and a small target grub, which means late summer for most of what they are used against.
- Frogs & toads AnuraHunts Vine weevil
A resident toad works the beds every night for slugs, cutworms, and weevils. Recruit them with water — even a sunken basin pond — plus damp shade and an upturned-pot toad house; skip the slug pellets that poison their prey.
- Green lacewing Chrysoperla carneaHunts Mealybugs
Its bristly larvae — "aphid lions" — impale aphids, mealybugs, thrips, and mite colonies, eating hundreds a week. Adults feed on nectar and pollen from small open flowers and overwinter in hollow stems left standing.
- Ground beetle CarabidaeHunts Vine weevil
Fast, glossy night hunters that patrol the soil surface for slugs, cutworms, and root-fly larvae. Give them daytime cover — thick perennial edges, stepping stones, a log — and skip the tillage that wrecks their burrows.
- Hedgehog Erinaceus europaeusHunts Vine weevil
A European animal, and worth saying so plainly: there are no hedgehogs in North America, and the ally that does the same night shift here is the toad, the opossum or the ground beetle. Where they do occur, cut a gap in the fence and skip the pellets.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com