Hi there,

Lots of people on this forum know more about these kinds of things than I, but I am willing to say a few things. I recently purchased a varigated jade, so I am curious and hopeful people will answer other than me.

I have heard that the varigated jades grow more slowly than the green ones. This would make sense to me, as they have less "food factory" clorophyll-laden parts.

When I have had plants under lights inside, I have only used fluorescent bulbs. I would think a lot of plants couldn't take the heat from incandescents, but I don't have any experience specifically with varigated jades. Plain ones don't seem to be deterred by heat in my experience. My plain jades survive the summers outdoors here in SD where it is often 90-100 degrees F (30-35C). I guess I am just too cheap to run lights for plants that take a lot of juice. I'd rather buy plants!

There are other threads about plain jades flowering. I put one up below.

I have read threads about jades in containers outside that belonged to someone from Florida. So that is pretty humid, and warm as well. Probably they wouldn't need watered as often as otherwise. But these were again plain jades.

I hope this is helpful, and that we'll hear from others soon.

asiap.

Here is a link that might be useful: Help my jade flower

I have only had bad experience with variegated jade. I received a huge clipping from a succulent sendoff. The poor thing just kept falling apart into smaller pieces that rotted away. Eventually, everything rotted away except for a leaf that rooted and started to grow a plant from it. I was excited until that also died.

Though, I am starting to get interested in getting a variegated jade but instead of a clipping, I'm going to look for a well-established plant.

http://plantclinic.cornell.edu/FactSheets/oedema/oedema.htm

We "summer" all our succulents and cacti out of doors. Then, late September or early October, we bring them indoors again. Each time we do this, the jades and the stapelia immediately produce buds and bloom. I conclude that the lower light indoors is the trigger. I don't know about South Dakota, but it works in Ontario!

Shapiro,
How old were your jades when they started blooming?I was wondering if there age has anything to do with them blooming? Or maybe size. My tallest one in the pot is just over 12 inches from the soil up.
I bought mine I in a 4 inch pot and have had them in an 8 inch pot since Feb of 2006, which is when I cut them back in hopes of making thicker branches.
Just took these two photos today. It has been out since late April and is still out except for a couple days last week when I brought them up onto my porch. So maybe I will get a bloom or two this fall. Fingers crossed.

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Top view, showing some color.

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My Jade is flowering now. It's about 24in tall with a 3in diameter trunk. My variegated jade is kept in full sun year round.

caudex, what zone/area are you in that your jade is flowering so early? It's so hard to gauge whether info applies to me when posters don't fill out their zone info.

I have many many of mine setting flower buds at this time, I do have a 30% shade cloth covering them however.
The ones that are not getting enough light have not set flowers yet. I live in CA zone 10. This year I had one in flower all year long, it was never out of flower, I certainly don't know the reason yet. We did have 5 days of a hard frost. (22F) We had under 4" of rain this past year through late Sept. The rain this past few weeks may have influenced them to flower early. Norma

Caudex, did I miss something? I'm looking at yr. pic for the buds, see none (maybe the pic is not so recent & yr. buds are happening now?)

Thanks Caudex, for posting your zone info. While walking my dog this AM I noticed that the jade bush which I got my branch cutting from has flower buds (not opened yet) on it! This surprises me because this bush is in a lot of shade. Located on a small side yard slope with many very tall cyprus trees planted in front of it and a tall dark colored wood fence behind it. I literally have to peek between the cyprus looking for the bush and yet it has flowers. Further on my walk there is a full block of jade bushes in full sun. They took quite a beating during our 110 degree week recently. They have no flower buds and one branch has turned black and sort of charcoal like, dying off and crunchy. Other jades on my walk in full sun also have no buds yet. Interesting! The shaded jade never has red tips on it, truly is in a dark area with only peaks of light at certain times of the day.

No buds on mine yet.

I'm in west-side Oregon, zone 9... my jades are also in bud now. They usually bloom between Thanksgiving and Xmas. My variegated jade spends most of its time outside like its bigger green siblings, sitting under the dappled shade of the bigger plants. (No buds on it yet but it's young.)