Inner Growth - Horty Girl's Plant Care Guide

Low Maintenance House Plant - Lucky Jade Plant

The Jade plant is also known as the Lucky Plant, Money Plant and more technical - Crassula argentea.  Jade is one of the most commonly grown houseplants. It’s popularity comes from it’s classic elegance and beauty and it’s low-maintenance requirement.  Its characterized by plump, full leaves with a glossy appearance coming off of thick stems.’

Care for your Jade plant is relatively easy, but you will need to know the plant’s specific requirements.

Jade plants like moderate light but will tolerate some direct sunlight. They will thrive in front of a south window, but will also do fine in front of an east window. If given some direct sunlight, they will flower.

Watering the money plant can be quite tricky.  You should only water when the soil feels completely dry and only water the plan 1/4 of a cup. An indication that the jade plant needs water - the pump leaves won’t have that supple feeling and will look a bit wrinkled.

Be careful watering jade plants! If you over water them, the plants can develop root rot where the stems will become soft and turn blackish.  If you under-water them the leaves can tend to droop.

A FOOLPROOF WAY to WATER A JADE PLANT - Use the Horty Girl Smart Stick found with every plant.  Similar to baking, stick the smart stick into the soil, wait a second and pull it out.  If it comes out clean, then its time to water it.

If your plant does develop stem or root rot, you should remove those stems as soon as possible to prevent it from speading to other healthy stems.

Another problem that this plant may experience is mealy bugs.  Mealybugs are common parasites on the stems and under leaves of Jade plants. If you notice these bugs on your jade plant, spray the plant with a soapy dishwasher mixture twice a day and it should get rid of them.  This “shower”method can also be done is the leaves become dusty.  Never use any leaf shine or cleaner products since it will destroy the protective oil on the leaves.

Putting the plant outside in the rain on a mild day occasionally can also help to wash off dust and freshen up the foliage as well.

To Propagate a Jade plant: Place a single healthy leaf against the side of the container with its basejust touching the top of the soil. Don’t water until you see that the leaf is producing roots and a new plant is forming.

Jade plants can also be produced from stem cutings, which can be quite short. Allow the cut end to dry off for a couple of weeks and then pot up in dry-ish soil. After two - three weeks a little water can be given.

Horty Girl Smart Stick included with every tag

The key to a long and healthy plant life is water management.  Indoor plant care is very manageable with the most basic of information.

The HortyGirl ‘SMART STICK’ method is brilliant yet very simple and applies to all plants in all containers:
If in doubt as to whether your plant requires a watering, use our care tag stake to test for moisture.  Just as you would use a toothpick to check to see if your muffins are done; insert our plant care tag stake into the base of the plant stems.  Pull the stake out and either notice if any soil is clinging to the stake.  If soil clings to the stake, this is an indication there is moisture in the root zone.  Alternatively, feel the stake for moisture levels (dry, moist or wet).  Depending on the care for your particular plant, you can make a watering decision from there.

Light levels are the most relative factor associated with watering routines.  Plants do require varying water management in association with their unique characteristics but light levels are the most important factor.

As light levels increase and decrease; so should our watering routines.  The changing seasons require a little extra attention as this is when we need to retrain ourselves with our watering routines.  In general; plan to increase your watering in Spring then maintain this more frequent ‘summer routine’ until Fall when watering should be tapered off to a less frequent ‘winter routine’.

As a simple example for an average indoor plant; if you are watering once per week in Summer, your Winter watering will be reduced to once every 2 weeks.

Our indoor plant products in clear glass vases provide us with a ‘window’ of opportunity towards water management.

General Plant Care guidelines for glass vases with pebbles, sand, bark or decorative granules:

• Resist any temptation to fill the vase with water
• Water sparingly according to the label directions
• Little to no water should remain in the bottom of the vase following watering.