Thanks for the friendly responses! Josh, you are exactly right- the plant was reaching for the light. As of late, it gets a ton of light. I am moving in 2 weeks, and my new house will have a wonderful spot for it with great light. I will re-pot it this year without the sand. I read somewhere that Jades like the sand, but I don't remember why. Would regular Miracle Grow potting mix work if I added Perlite? Now, to find a way to get my poor jade to the new house without freezing it to death. Anyone know where they sell plant jackets? Ha... Purpleinopp and Sradleye, The pot has an attached saucer with what i THOUGHT were drainage holes. I never checked to see if the drains actually worked, and to be honest, I can say I have never once noticed any moisture in the saucer. I thought maybe I just wasn't soaking it enough to cause it to drain, but now I am wondering if the drains are clogged up... I will have to check on that! I read on here that when the jade is too wet, the trunk will feel a bit squishy. Mine is firm, but I will be sure to check on the drainage situation. Thanks, guys! I'll keep checking to see if anyone else sees some red flags...

Hey Purple, There's a lot of succulents one can grow w/out any spikes (which I do not allow in my house at all). Gasterias, Haworthias, Aloes, Sansevierias (how could I almost forget them?) various types of Crassulas, lots to choose from. Yet some Euphorbia miliis (Crown of Thorns) have spikes (thorns really & oddly enough they've wormed their way into my collection). I've got 4 or 5 of these in total now, just left a large one out in my bldg's laundry (before the Hurricane), & didn't think anyone would mess w/ it 'cause of its thorns (like those of a rose). It was getting too big for my place anyway, & someone swiped it pretty fast. I had pruned it into very nice shape. It was a stingy bloomer of yellow flowers (bracts really), wasn't even blooming & someone swiped it!!

"I am sure other reader of this thread will appreciate it as well." It's been very educational for me. I'm really glad you're showing the progress of this plant. The trunk is shaping up nicely. I'm learning about this stuff myself. I don't know if you will be able to use grow lights, but I started growing one that I thought had stalled, under a grow light. The new growth (top set of leaves on the right and small ones out of the left) is so compact, I don't know how I'll be able to prune it when the time comes. This has that slingshot look, which will hopefullybe remedied in the future by doing similar to what Al suggested. You may have missed this part of Al's instructions: Don't allow any buds to grow from the pair of leaves left at the top of the stub. This will force back-budding from the lower nodes from which leaves have been shed. If you're lucky, you'll also get a bud to pop at the red arrow. The good thing is you have great trunk growth which is what happens from letting branches grow. I always had that backwards; I put the plants in small containers to keep limit root growth (supposedly), which will only keep the trunk smaller, and pruned too much too soon, like in my photo above, which is actually older than it looks. Here are a couple of links that I've found extremely interesting. They require a couple of read-throughs for me, and then I'll read them again in a few months, after I've had more experience. https://adamaskwhy.com/2012/08/22/dwarf-jade-portulacaria-afra/ https://adamaskwhy.com/2014/08/11/dwarf-jade-bonsai-techniques/ I'm not sure if they apply directly to you, because you may not be looking to make it into a bonsai tree per se, and these plants are Portulacaria afra as opposed to Crassula, but definitely instructive regarding pruning. I hope this thread stays active. Thanks for posting. Sorry I can't give any real advice yet.

To echo Rina, needing less water doesn't mean to water in sips, though I can see how people could take it that way. When soil is moist, the plant drinks up all it can. When soil dries out, the roots grow in search of moisture(a good thing). When soil is dry and you water it, at first the soil resists water. Thus, to 1. water it until it runs out the bottom then 2. wait a few minutes, then repeat that cycle two more times, you ensure that all the soil in the root ball actually gets wet. The wait time depends on how long the soil holds on to water. There are several factors that go into how fast the water left in the soil evaporates, so you have to evaluate dryness each time before you water. If it were mine, I would prune it back significantly and try to find a better lighting situation. By significantly I mean in this case about 6 inches off each branch. This allows for increased branching, and gives the main branches time to harden off and be more resistant to flopping in the future. I assume that by saying the leaves are mushy, you mean they are dehydrated, floppy, flattened. Is that true? I have never seen rot in the leaves and not in the trunk, so rot seems unlikely in this case. Keep in mind that it is MUCH harder to kill a jade with dry conditions than with wet. Which brings us full circle back to Rina's question about well-draining mix... ez