Hi ilcapo. Be careful, the first buy can easily turn into an obsession. I've just explained to my husband that I have an addictive personality. =0) There is no particular "look" that is sought after other than healthy. A healthy tree/plant will have firm but not rigid branches. They will thicken with time but this is relative to the size pot you put them in. The older the branches become the tanner they become. As they begin to age, they develop a "bark" look. As they get really old, the bark will almost start to look like it is peeling. This is normal too. Some people have many stems in a pot and let it grow really full. Others train one stem in a pot and train it into a tree. While others train one stem as a tree but in the miniature form of bonsai. Google or yahoo a search of crassula ovata and then hit the pictures button. Look at a lot of pictures and see what is appealing to you. THen you can decide how you want to "prune" yours over time, if at all. The first advice I can give you is take it immediately out of the soil you bought it in and look up the recipes used by people here on how to make your own. The Cactus and Succulent soils you will buy in the box stores is a waste of time as well. I do use it, but only as about 1/5 of the soil. This is what has worked for me: (borrowed from Al's recipe with a bit of a mod)2 parts pine bark fines, 2 parts fired clay (Turface, Haydite, etc.), and 1 part peat based soil. You want the soil to drain really well. Alot also depends on where you live. I live in a humid city so I don't have to water mine as much, even the ones outside. They also don't need a lot of fertilizer. I only feed mine once a year, but I could be wrong in doing that. I do know that most C&S are not heavy feeders and can live in pretty scarce soil. Hope this helps.

kgsd that's funny because I have found hardly any like the one I posted! It becomes more challenging because I'd like a brushed nickel to match the sink faucet, but I have found only chrome and white so far. I looked on the Kohler and Moen websites and on faucet.com and designerplumbingoutlet.com. I think the challenge is that so many pictures only show the showerhead itself, and not how it attaches to the wall and water source. (Even when I look at the install guide.) I will take a look at the store websites you mention to see what I can find. (And I suppose I should get my lazy self out to look at them in person!) buyorsell let me know if you find one, and I'll post if I find a good one too. (BTW the picture I posted above is Moen Adler, found on their web site.)

My suggestions: Save the red cuts( top parts) to re-propagate and start newer plants Black line with red & yellow lines near a top should be cut to also re-propagate Black line with pink arrow looks like it's okay to keep as the ' Mother plant' Yellow curved lines you could attempt single leave propagation from each leaf My personal preference would lean toward trashing them only because they can root quickly but tend to grow rather slowly. Watering in winter: ( no to dismiss any feed back from Paul ) In your mentioned every two weeks in a pot that size ( and un mentioned soil materiel) could be to often ( IMO). In my experience, I keep that small pot under lights in pure pumice and some granite rocks material ( in a nut shell) my watering would be less frequent in the midst of under lighting winter months in this adobe. I'm also pretty sure the amount of water I use is much less than what you would use in winter. Summer watering can be (and usually is stated) very different from person to person ( As I tend to lean toward the side of very high doubts when some state they didn't water but actually did, but I think this only because if they didn't water as frequently as I do here in a good sharp draining gritty mix them wonderful jades they post and get raved about would simply be dried to death ) Watering seems to also differer from one Crassulacea to another Understanding that our summer season is equal to any Adromichus winter ( in SA) would also be needing in my zone a cooler still bright area where it's also on the dryer side. In a nut shelll ( to be clear) if your watering any Crassulacea more than twice a week at any volume of water and or any size or type of pot it's in the wrong warm sunny spot. Your pot is much bigger than my 3/4ths inch deep X 1.5 X 1.00 inch I imagine if you felt the need to water it that frequently and still not have it stretch so badly would also depend on the watering volume for each watering and it's distance from the lighting ( or natural winter sun light).

NP Tyler; When water is poured and it drains out slowly, soil particles 'float'. As water drains out (slowly), the particles stick (or settle on) to the inside of the pot. If water drains quickly, they 'settle' right on the top as they don't have time to float. Most often, this will happen when there are lots of finer particles - could be fine soil, peat or even very small perlite particles. If the mix has peat in it and peat dried up, it becomes hydrophobic: doesn't let water soak in, it actually repels it. When you water that kind of mix, water has no chance to soak and get to the roots, it just sort of slides over the hydrophobic peat. I am not saying your mix has peat (I do not know what is in it, I see lots of perlite -that is good- ). Not sure if that makes sense? I see some deposits on inside of the pot, so I expect mix doesn't drain so well. But there could be another reason: if the pot was reused and not washed of previous soil. The way you describe your watering is good. Btw, when you repotted plant, did you get old soil off the roots? Was it in soil from the store? (they usually contain lots of peat, sometimes all peat).