Jade Plant Leaves Falling Off When Touched | Solutions

The jade plant is also known as the money plant and the crocus ovata. This family has different shapes wide varieties of plants, including Gollum jade and Hobbit plants. These succulents thrive in the harsh environment of South Africa. This plant requires very little water to thrive. Jade plant leaves falling off indicates that your plant is stressed and not happy about the growing condition.

There can be numerous reasons for Jade plant leaves falling off when touched. In this post, I’m going to cover everything about your jade plant leaves dropping. If we sort out the main reasons, it can be your watering pattern issue, nutrient deficiencies, temperature, bright sun, or even potting mix issue.

Jade is popular among the bonsai community and succulent growers because it requires minimal maintenance and a compact tree shape shrub.

Why Jade Plant Leaves Falling Off When Touched?

Overwatering.

One of the reasons that jade plant leaves falling off when touched is overwatering. Succulents plants do not like to sit on wet soil mix. Overwatering can happen mainly three ways. That is the most common reason for Crassula ovata leaves losing.

There are two main reasons for excess water retention in the potting mixture. That is frequent watering without checking the soil moisture level or the presence of excess water-retaining material in the jade potting soil, or the absence of drainage holes.

The main symptoms of the overwatered jade plant are black spots or black edges on jade leaves, and they are soft and mushy and finally falling off. You can read more about jade plant leaves edge turning brown-black guide for more information.

Underwatering.

Since succulents are good drought-tolerant plants, they do not require regular maintenance. However, they need little care and attention. Therefore new beginners forget to water at the right time. Lack of water for a long time can severely affect the jade plant. It can lead to leaves falling off the jade plants.

The main symptom of the underwatered jade plant is wrinkled leaves. Succulents store water on leaves. When they receive a lack of water, they start using stored water. The water in the leaves absorbs the survival of the plant; it causes the leaf to wrinkled.

When the plant receives less water, it tries to protect itself by using stored water on leaves and dropping jade plant leaves. Without any discoloring of the leaves, you can experience this issue.

Solution for underwater jade: Water well. You can use the soak and dry method to water jade plants. Once you water the plant, removes the saucer remaining water to prevent waterlogging.

Overfertilize.

We love the bushy jade plants. It is more attractive. Therefore most of the new beginners provide a good amount of fertilizer. Chemical fertilizer has more salt. Therefore it excessive fertilization affects the plant worse than good.

Overfertilization can also cause the jade plants to lose their leaves. Excessive fertilizer plant’s soil mix contains imbalanced salt concentrations. Therefore it is not suitable for these desert plants. Overfertilized jade plant leaves symptoms are yellowing and wilting leaves, browning leaf edges and ultimately leaf dropping.

The solution for overfertilized jade plants is to pull the plant from the potting mix and wash the root bowl and repot jade plant new soil. Another solution is washing the potting soil. For that water, the plant thoroughly flows out the drainage holes.

Always use balanced N:P:K (e.g., 10:10:10 or 20:20:20) ratio to jade plant. Succulents do not like high nitrogen fertilizer. Moreover, liquid fertilizer is better than granular.

Sunburn or bright grow lights.

Stressing the succulent produces vibrant color and grows it as a compact. Although succulents thrive well in harsh environments, prolonged exposure to excessive sunlight can cause the plant to become overstressed and cause jade plant leaves to drop while touching it. When the plant is overstressed, it tries to relax by falling off jade leaves.

The solution is to move your plant into a partially shady location. If moving partial shade is difficult, use a UV-protective cloth net with a 40- to 50% sunblock rating as an alternative. If the soil is completely dry up, you can water the jade plant.

Another reason for jade plant leaves falling off is over-exposure to grow lights. When the grow light is closer to the plant, it is overexposed to bright light, and it can overstress the plant, drop jade leaves and lead to leaves burn. In the above photo, you can see a small LED grow light burn spot.

Temperature change.

In hot summer or freezing winter, your jade leaves turn black and drop. The sudden temperature change can cause Crassula ovata leaves to drop. It is better to move your plant indoors where you can control the temperature in both situations, especially indoor mini greenhouse.

Do not allow the temperature to change drastically when the plant is taken inside. A sudden temperature change can damage the plant.