Unfortunately, jade are not frost tolerant, so if temperatures reach below freezing in your area, you’ll need to keep your jade indoors or risk severe cold damage.
Jade plants don’t mind being pot-bound—in fact, it helps keep them small! Usually, you only need to repot if the roots start coming out the bottom of the pot or if the plant becomes top heavy.
Instead of repotting your jade into a larger, heavier pot, you could try root pruning. This is a technique commonly done with bonsai trees that allows you to keep a plant in its current-size pot while also giving it room to continue to grow. To root prune, remove the plant from the pot and prune off at most 1/3 of the roots. Cut from the bottom of the root ball, and try to remove the older, darker roots first, leaving younger, paler roots to continue growing.
When you repot, it’s important to use soil that’s fairly dry and that drains well, and to refrain from watering for 7–10 days. This will keep the roots safer from fungal disease like rot. For extra protection, you could dust the cut roots with an anti-fungal powder (find it in a local hardware store or garden center).
Unfortunately, jade are not frost tolerant, so if temperatures reach below freezing in your area, you’ll need to keep your jade indoors or risk severe cold damage.
Jade plants don’t mind being pot-bound—in fact, it helps keep them small! Usually, you only need to repot if the roots start coming out the bottom of the pot or if the plant becomes top heavy.
Instead of repotting your jade into a larger, heavier pot, you could try root pruning. This is a technique commonly done with bonsai trees that allows you to keep a plant in its current-size pot while also giving it room to continue to grow. To root prune, remove the plant from the pot and prune off at most 1/3 of the roots. Cut from the bottom of the root ball, and try to remove the older, darker roots first, leaving younger, paler roots to continue growing.
When you repot, it’s important to use soil that’s fairly dry and that drains well, and to refrain from watering for 7–10 days. This will keep the roots safer from fungal disease like rot. For extra protection, you could dust the cut roots with an anti-fungal powder (find it in a local hardware store or garden center).