Jade Plant: winter overwatering — what does it look like?

Leaves yellowing, softening and dropping at the slightest touch. Stems soft and dark at the base. Water very sparingly from November to February. Once the main stem softens it is usually too late.

Jade Plant: insufficient light — what does it look like?

Long stretched stems with widely spaced leaves, leaves small and pale rather than plump and edged red. Wants several hours of direct sun. Etiolated growth never firms up but the plant survives to be cut back.

Jade Plant: mealybugs — what does it look like?

White cottony deposits in leaf joints, sticky residue, stunted growth. Treatable with repeated alcohol swabbing, but a heavy infestation on a weakened plant finishes it.

Field Guide/Jade Plant

What went wrong

Jade Plant

Crassula ovata

Can live fifty years. Frequently manages eight months.

Jade is a long-lived succulent that becomes a small tree given decades of benign neglect. What kills the young ones is winter watering: the plant slows almost to a halt in low light and cool temperatures, and continuing a summer watering routine through December rots it.

The characteristic sign is leaf drop at a touch — leaves that fall when the plant is brushed have already lost their attachment, which means the stem beneath is failing.

Usually one of these

3 Likely Causes

Ranked by how often it is actually this.

01
Winter overwatering
The classic
What you saw
Leaves yellowing, softening and dropping at the slightest touch. Stems soft and dark at the base.
What it means
Water very sparingly from November to February. Once the main stem softens it is usually too late.
02
Insufficient light
Very common
What you saw
Long stretched stems with widely spaced leaves, leaves small and pale rather than plump and edged red.
What it means
Wants several hours of direct sun. Etiolated growth never firms up but the plant survives to be cut back.
03
Mealybugs
Occasional
What you saw
White cottony deposits in leaf joints, sticky residue, stunted growth.
What it means
Treatable with repeated alcohol swabbing, but a heavy infestation on a weakened plant finishes it.

The question you actually have

Dead or dormant?

Jade barely grows between October and March; stillness in winter is normal. Judge by the stem, not by growth. Firm woody stems mean a living plant even if it has dropped most of its leaves. Any fallen leaf that is still plump can be laid on dry soil and will root — jade is one of the easiest plants to restart from a single leaf.

If it did not make it