Wasn't able to post my

Sounds great! What do I need to take photos of?

Cut all the branches in the top half of the composition back to 3 nodes by making your pruning cuts half-way between the 3rd and 4th node. The stub remaining (distal to the 3rd node) will eventually die back to the 3rd node and you'll be able to simply rub it off after about 6 months. This pinching/pruning will force 2 new branches from each node. From the 6 branches that will occur from the 3 nodes, you'll have your choice of keeping 2 branches and rubbing the others off. Study all branches and keep those that make the most sense in terms of completing a branch structure where all branches are growing outward toward their own share of light.

After you complete the pruning, please provide 4 images of the plant - a left, right, front, back view. Try to take the images with the ht of your camera/phone at half the distance from the bottom of the pot to the top of the plant, and provide a top view looking straight down on the plant. From that, I should be able to help you decide which branches to remove completely.

Al

Will do! I don't work again until Friday, so don't be concerned about no photos appearing before then. Thank you so much Al!!!

FYI I only work Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays & my shifts are all day, open to close. Only one of us works at the shop at a time. I'll start the pruning process Friday morning, so I'll probably have the photos posted sometime on Friday - the timing depends on how busy the shop is. I hope to have the pruning completed by Sunday afternoon since my boss will be working first thing Monday morning. I realize this may not work with your schedule & that you're doing me a huge favor so I understand if you're not able to get back with me by Sunday. Thank you so much for your help!!!

Deanna

Forgot to ask about this - the plant is looking dehydrated so I watered her on Sunday and I'm wondering when she should be watered again, particularly since she barely has any roots. Her soil mix:

1 grit
1 turface
1 pumice
1 perlite
2 pine bark

I didn't mention this before because my post was already quite lengthy, but whoever had her before we got her had surrounded her with liriope grass. The liriope roots and tubers had grown all throughout and were twisted through and around Big Momma's roots. I didn't want the liriope to grow back so I worked very hard to remove every bit of liriope root, which was quite challenging to do working with soil that's like concrete, even after soaking it in water for a few hours. There were significantly more liriope roots than Jade roots in that pot.

Unfortunately, this process destroyed much of the small amount of roots she had. I'm so worried about her! I definitely want to get the watering piece right. This has been a nightmare!! Poor Big Momma. She probably cringes every time she sees me coming. 😕

You should have a good idea re where the remaining roots are located in the soil column. IOW, are they near the top, middle, or bottom of the soil column? Water to ensure the medium provides enough moisture in the part of the soil occupied by roots. It would also be helpful if you used a wick to eliminate any excess water that might accumulate in the medium. You can also significantly reduce water retention by usiung an overturned pot as ballast. Compare A to D below.

If you can find a pot slightly smaller than the diam of the plant's pot at the bottom, you can use it in conjunction with the wick (see E).

I am currently dealing with a severe case of oxalis in my pots. The seeds explode from the seed pod and go everywhere. The combined root systems (plant + oxalis) become so congested it's impossible to water effectively, so I know what you're dealing with. I'm still repotting tropicals and those plants most affected by the oxalis show the center of the root mass bone dry when I repot. Fortunately, I don't think I'm in danger of losing any plants, and expect they will all be fine after all are repotted and before I move them indoors for the winter months.

I also know what you mean about calcified soil being like concrete. Our bonsai club met at a very large nursery/ landscaping operation. They freely donated any plants that were too rootbound to sell. There were some particularly nice yews that were going to be chipped, so I sorted through them and came up with a dozen 3 gallon plants for a club workshop. We spent 2 meetings styling the trees, but when it came time to repot them in the spring, most of the trees were lost to the stress of trying to remove the rock-hard soil. My approach, for the tree I worked on, was to cut nearly the entire root mass off and prune it back as hard as possible while still making sure there was some viable foliage on all branches. With Crassula, you needn't worry about removing all the foliage from a branch, it will back-bud reliably as long as you avoid over-watering.

Part of the reason I suggested the heavy pruning of the top was your initial description of the root issues you had. While most growers hold it to be true that taking a part in balancing root:shoot ratios is somehow precluded by the conventional view that the canopy is where the food comes from (photosynthesis) and that's reason enough not to prune back the top. My considerable experience repotting and lifting plants from the wild and from the landscape for use as bonsai paints a different picture. Plants are economical when it comes to their energy outlay. If you don't take a hand in balancing the volume of foliage so the roots can meet the canopy's moisture needs, and since plants are shedding organisms, they will absolutely do their own balancing by shedding leaves and branches to the point where roots are able to keep the canopy hydrated. The problem with allowing the plant to do its own 'balancing' lies in the fact that you relinquish control over what branches might be shed. As often as not, plants unduly stressed by an inadequate volume of roots are as likely to shed branches important to the eye appeal as they are branches you don't mind sacrificing. A hard pruning puts the decision back in the hands of the grower, which is where control needs to be for both the vitality and eye appeal of the plant.

I'm retired, and have been staying close to home doing repots, so I'll see your post within a half day of it being posted.

Al

Question from high in the bleachers: is that a single plant, which branched near the bottom? Or could it be more than one plant in there? I can't tell. (I'm just curious.)

Either way, it looks healthy to me.

Also, just supposing gardenfanatic2003 wanted to root the cuttings - do you callous them first? (I can go google that though.)

Just my educated guess - if you look at the last image in GF's second post, you'll see that the ties/ guy-lines used for support are on the thicker and more upright of the 2 trunks, even though the other trunks with more lean would be more at risk of toppling if they weren't connected at or just below the soil line. For that reason I'm thinking it's all a single plant with a single root system, but only GF knows for sure.

I have grown and worked on a lot of very large jades for other people. For cuttings of both portulacaria and crassula, I take cuttings with a very sharp tool, clean up the basal end of the cutting with a scalpel so there is no crushed tissue or hanging tags of tissue (where rot starts), and dip the basal end in Hormodin #1 or #2 (0.1 and 0.3% IBA respectively) and let it dry for a day. For cuttings, I typically prepare the propagule, stick it in dry soil, secure any required anchoring, and wait 1-2 days (pot sited in shade and protected from wind) before watering.

For repots, I bare-root and root prune, then immediately establish/ secure the propagule in a pot with dry gritty mix and water immediately.

Whenever you stick a gutting in a medium that supports perched water, the basal end of the cutting should always be higher in the pot than the max ht of the perched water table. The lack of an adequate oxygen in the perched water sets the table for any of the fungaluglies commonly grouped under the umbrella of 'damping-off diseases'.

Al

@tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a), I have some questions about what you wrote about cuttings (mine are schefflera cuttings). I'll do them here or it's better if I post them in the discussion where I talked about that pruned plant)?

.... better not to piggyback here on GF's post re Crassula. Best to add to your own already dedicated thread. I'll see it if I have already replied at least once to your thread. If I haven't replied to your scheff thread, just send me a link via email and I'll reply.

It's one big plant.

Al, am I to cut after the 3rd node where I'm pointing in the 1st pic or the 2nd pic?

Second.

Ok here's what I've done so far. I wasn't sure what you meant by the top half of the composition. This was pretty scary! But I'm ready to continue when you give me further instructions.

It looked like whoever pruned it previously had used the 3 node rule as well b/c that's where a lot of the branching was.

Now I have a WAY BIGGER problem. This afternoon I started worrying about root rot b/c I checked and the substrate was still damp from when I watered on Sunday. The plant is much lighter than she was before the pruning, so I lifted her out of the pot and in trying to see what was going on underneath, I heard the sickening sound of bark splitting. I accidentally pulled her apart b/c I was holding a branch in each hand. It's not split all the way through, but it's most of the way. Now I'm worried rot will set in where the crack is b/c IDK if any of the damp substrate went in there. I'm glad no customers came in because I bawled for a good 20 minutes. I felt like locking the door and going home. I'm starting to think I shouldn't be allowed near plants. What a colossal screw up. And it's not even my plant. I'm afraid to do anything else at this point cuz IDK what I'll screw up next. 😖

@tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a) help please! IDK what to do now! The store closes at 3:00 today and I won't be back again til next Friday. At this point I'm less concerned about the pruning and more worried about what I need to do about preventing infection in the crack. I'll come in on my day off if there's something I need to do asap. Please let me know!

I'm starting to think I shouldn't be allowed near plants. What a colossal screw up. And it's not even my plant. I'm afraid to do anything else at this point cuz IDK what I'll screw up next.

If you don't commit yourself, you'll never fail. Probably even our wise tapla made mistakes when he started caring for the first plants.

I'm not just beginning with plants. That's why I'm getting beyond frustrated with myself. If it had been a simple root prune and repot there would've been no problem because I've done that dozens of dozens of times. But it has gone way beyond that. I'm in over my head and regretting that I tried to repot the plant even though it badly needed it. I told my boss I would need help managing the plant due to the size, but he had other things going on and had to leave in a hurry, so I tried to do it by myself. Big mistake.

I can understand you: this year I pruned the roots of several plants without anyone else's help, including two huge ficus benjamins and a schefflera with severely tied roots. What an effort, especially for a beginner like me who is worried about doing damage!

I accidentally pulled her apart b/c I was holding a branch in each hand. It's not split all the way through, but it's most of the way. Now I'm worried rot will set in where the crack is b/c IDK if any of the damp substrate went in there. It's highly likely the slip is going to prove nowhere near as calamitous as you fear; and, that you got some of the soil in the wound isn't much to be concerned about. The plant will wall off the wound and generate callous tissue to close the wound. To prevent rot issues, use a soil drench of a fungicide known to be effective against damping-off diseases. Alternately, you might dust the wound with flowers of sulfur (powered elemental sulfur). Try to keep the plant whole by tying it together (above the soil line if possible) with grafting tape or strips of a terry towel.

Al

Thank goodness!! I will do that.

Deanna

@tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a), I'm ready for my next pruning lesson if you've got the time this weekend.

Deanna

.... only seeing a few places that are barely starting to backbud. Should I be concerned? Don't be concerned, I was just curious. You'll want to do the rest of the pruning before the back-budding gets to advanced. I promise I'll get to that soon. I'm negotiating to sell the glazing corp (glass company) I started in '78 to the person currently acting as CEO, so my days have all been hectic, but I haven't forgotten you. My mind doesn't solve abstract problems as well as it used to, so I need some time where I can devote myself exclusively to the issue w/o interruption. I consider looking at 2D images to come up with a realistic image of what the problem looks like in 3D to be challenge.

I thought it would only be a couple weeks before all pruned branches would be starting to backbud. That sounds about right. I root-pruned a large portulacaria (aka - mini-jade) over the weekend and I wish I had taken photos of the process. I probably removed 90% of the roots. All leaves are still turgid, so it's going to be fine. Jade/ crassula is the same. You can remove an amazing volume of roots pretty much with impunity, so long as you don't over-water.

Maybe it's because it barely has any roots? Yes. When roots are pruned or damaged, the plant's chemical messengers inform plant central that the roots are unable to support a larger top volume. This stops all top growth until the root system recovers to the point where it can again support additional top growth.

My boss put it under a pretty strong light that's probably close to the equivalent of full sun. I probably wouldn't have done that since the plant is stressed. What do you think? I think time will tell. The 2 factors in play are light intensity/ duration and any increase in leaf temperatures. Watch for a grey or tan look to some of the leaves, indicating photo-oxidation (sunburn), or for leaves to become wrinkled/ spongy. 'Wrinkled/ spongy' indicates water is being lost through the leaf surface at a rate faster than it can be replaced via the root pathway. Ultimately, both issues can result in loss of foliage. At this point I don't think that would be a big deal, but it would definitely be advantageous if the plant was able to retain all of it's current foliage.

Al

8 stems have started back budding. 50% of the leaves are wrinkled, and of the ones that aren't wrinkled, 50% of them are soft.

Deanna