How to Get a Jade Plant to Flower | Tips On Flowering Jade Plants

Learn How to Get a Jade Plant to Flower with these useful tips! Using these tricks, you’ll have a blooming succulent in no time!

Popular for its stubby appearance and green leaves with a tint of orange-red at the edges, Crassula ovata is one of the most versatile succulent houseplants you can grow. The best part is, it also blooms! Here’s all you need to know about How to Get Jade Plant to Flower.

Here are the best types of jade plants you can grow

Does a Jade Plant Flower?

The answer to the question is—Yes, it can bloom! Jade plants flower when they attain maturity in favorable conditions in nature. If yours is not blooming, as usual, you may need to force it by providing short days with cold, dry, and dark treatment listed in this article that results in flowering.

Jade Plant Flower Appearance

In late winters to spring, you can expect small, star-shaped clusters of beautiful white or pink blossoms on Crassula ovata in response to long nights. The blooms begin as buds covered with pink sepals, which open with two or three clusters when the plant flowers.

According to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the blossom has a faint sweet fragrance, in good conditions, pollinated blooms produce small ‘capsules’ filled with seeds. You can harvest these seeds to propagate more jade plants.

Check out our article on making the jade plant more colorful and red here

How Long it Takes for Jade Plant to Bloom?

Young jade plants do not flower. So, if you have a small plant that’s about 1-2 years old, wait. Don’t expect it to blossom soon. It takes a 3 to 5 years old plant to produce flowers.

Want to make your jade plants bushy? Here are the secrets!

How Often Does a Jade Plant Bloom?

Don’t be disheartened if your jade plant is not blooming every year. In the wild, flowering is variable and infrequent because the plant doesn’t rely upon blossoms to reproduce. If you follow the given instructions, your mature jade plant will periodically flower in mid to late winter or spring.

Here’s all you need to know about growing jade plants

Significance of Jade Plant Blooms

According to Feng Shui, when a jade plant blooms, it is a compliment to its grower. Also, the flowering jade plant symbolizes a great friendship, bringing good luck and prosperity. Apart from that, this means it will bear seeds, which you can use to germinate more jade plants.

How to Get Jade Plant to Flower?

1. The Secret Lies in the Length of Night and Day

There’s no official time of the jade plant when it enters a state of dormancy, but it definitely needs some rest period for the buds to form in colder climates.

Around September, the plant will slow down its growth for late fall and winter, indicating dormancy. This is when you have to be careful with the watering. Water the plant only when the soil goes completely dry. Avoid feeding the plant during that time.

Also, make sure the plant stays in complete darkness during nighttime for 14-16 hours and gets bright light during the day. The combination of this, along with less watering and shorter days, will encourage the plant to bloom.

2. Maturity Makes it Flowerful–Literally!

It will be best to buy mature 3-4 years old plants if you want to enjoy the blooms as young plants do not flower.

3. Keep Things Crowded at the Bottom

Avoid repotting your jade plant unless it is densely crowded in the pot. Allowing the plant to live in the same container for a long makes the flowering process faster, as it diverts energy into producing shoots and flowers rather than spending it forming more roots.

If you want to re-pot the plant, wait until the plant has finished flowering. Use quality soil that is loamy or a cactus mix while transplanting it to a new container.

4. Neither too Hot, Not too Cold

When the plant usually flowers around late winter or early spring, keep it in a temperature range of 50-60 F (10-15 C). It will encourage the plant to form buds. However, make sure that the plant is not exposed to freezing temperatures during this time.

5. Let Sun Be Its Guiding Light

The reason why jade plants fail to flower indoors is because of the lack of light. Sun exposure is the crucial factor when it comes to blooming jade plants, and it needs a minimum of 4-6 hours of outdoor light in order to do so.

If you have a potted plant, choose a well-lit location like a windowsill that gets direct sun for at least 3-5 hours a day and keep the plant there.

5. Let it Have Some Bananas

After drying them in the sun, grind banana peels to make a fine powder. Take a liter of water in a container and add 1-2 teaspoons of banana peel powder along with a pinch of Epsom salt. Shake well and use it to water the plant. You can do this once or twice a month.

To promote blooming, you can also use a tomato fertilizer prior to the blooming period, diluted to half of its strength, once in 4-6 weeks. If you live in a cold climate, avoid fertilizing in winter

Note: Banana peels contain 42 percent potassium, an efficient element that boosts flowering.

6. Give it a Stroll in Your Garden or Outdoors

If you have a jade plant indoors, then it’d be a good idea to move it to a bright patio or a balcony, where it gets direct sunlight for 4-6 hours every day. This will not only encourage blooming but also make it healthy.

Watch this video for more information