Overwatered Jade Plant Symptoms | How To Save

The Jade plant is commonly known as a lucky plant, Crassula ovata, money plant, or money tree. This is one of the flowering succulents native to South Africa.

Like other succulents, money plants require very little water to survive. Therefore, many gardeners prefer to grow it as an indoor houseplant.

Unlike other succulents, the Jade plant has a bit different appearance. When the plant is growing, it develops thick branches. Even if it is low maintaining plant you have to care jade plant correctly.

What does an overwatered jade plant look like?

The main symptom of overwatered jade plant leaves is yellowish leaves, make leaves soft, then the edge of the leaves starts black and starts drying. These are the initial sign. Then the plant leaves start dropping and eventually die.

You can further verify it by checking the root system. If the roots are starting to rot, further confirm that your jade plant is overwatered. So you have to take immediate action before the plant going to dies.

However, when the plant is getting mature, it usually dropping the bottom leaves over time. That is completely a normal situation. If you notice your Money plant leaves dropping unusually, then you should concern.

Moreover, you can check the jade potting mix moisture level. If the soil mix is waterlogging, your plant is at risk of root rot.

Reasons for overwatering.

There are several ways to save the dying jade plants. First, you have to identify what causes your plant unhappiness. Overwatering can happen in several ways.

• Too frequent watering schedule.
• Waterlogging potting mix.

Between the two watering your potting mix, completely dry. This applies to the topsoil as well as subsoil.

Potting Mix Waterlogging.

Like other succulents, jade plants like well-drain soil mix. So the first thing you should do to save a dying jade plant is checked your potting mix waterlogging.

Not only that,  then you have to ensure that your succulent pot drainage holes large enough and not blocked. These basic tests verify that what causes to die your lucky plant.

The well-drain succulent potting mix should consist 60% of inorganic materials and 40% of organic materials. You can read more about my DIY succulent potting mix post for further details.

Frequent watering pattern.

Before the potting mix completely dries up, you may water it thoroughly. This will lead to jade plant root rot. Between two watering potting mix completely dry up.

How do you fix Overwatered Jade Plant?

There can be several remedies to save overwatered jade plants.

• If you frequently water before, potting mix completely dries up. So you have to cut the watering schedule.
• Repot the jade plant soil mix.

Change the Jade Plant Potting mix.

The next thing you should do to save overwatered jade plants is to change the potting mix. This will help the plant breathe and sit on well-drain soil.

Required equipment.

• Brush to remove soil.
• Gloves to protect your hands.
• Trowel to mix the soil.
• Container collects potting mix.

Prepare the plant.

• This is a messy job. Therefore you have to ready the necessary tools and equipment for this.
• First, gently pull the plant from the current pot.
• Then carefully remove the old soil much as possible without damaging roots.
• Do not use water to wash away the old soil. Instead, you can use a brush or your hand. Gently remove the soil on the tangled roots.
• Remove dead and rotten roots. Generally, rotten roots are brownish, and healthy active roots have a white center. Cut the rotten roots until you see a white center.
• Let the rotten roots air dry for several hours. However, do not let the plant expose sunlight; it will further damage the plant.
• Once the plant air dry, if there is a root-growing hormone, rub it well on the cut roots. This hormone will protect the damaged roots as well as promote root growth.

Prepare potting mix.

The ideal potting soil should consist of 60% of inorganic matter and 40% organic matter to ensure drainage and provide enough nutrients to the plant.

Prepare your jade plant potting soil with my DIY own soil recipe, or you can buy ready-made succulent potting mix on the local market. However, I do recommend adding few more inorganic materials to enhance the drainage.

For this, I recommend using 60% of read-made potting mix, 20% of perlite/pumice, and 20% of gritty mix/coarse sand/turface. Do not use all-purpose readymade potting mix. Those all-purpose soil mixes contain more water retain materials like peat moss, which can cause water logging.

You can read more about my DIY succulent potting mix guide for more details.

Repot Jade plant.

• Now you have to select a suitable container for the plant. This plant has a large root system than other succulents. When a small tree is planted in a large pot, the water retention in the soil increases. Therefore, choose a well-drained succulent container that fits the size of the tree and the size of the root system. You can read more about how to choose right pot for succulents for fuller detail.
• Make sure that the pot drainage holes large enough and excess water can easily flow out. This will prevent waterlogging.
• Cover the bottom drainage hole using pad mesh or flat rock.
• Then pour the prepared well-draining potting mix and place the jade plant on it.
• Do not water for two days. This period will help heal the damaged roots. Then, on the 2nd-day, water well until the excess water flows out the drainage holes.

How to water.

After the initial watering, you have to wait for the potting mix to dry up completely. Between two watering soil mix should dry. This will prevent the jade plant from overwatering.

Before water, the jade plant, check the surface soil and subsoil also completely dry. You can use a dry stick or moisture level meter for this. I do recommend reading my how-to check potted succulents soil moisture post for more details.

How many times do you water a jade plant?

Jade plant watering depends on the ambient temperature, water evaporation rate, and soil moisture level. In most cases, improper watering patterns lead to overwatering. Therefore you have to be more careful.

• Between two watering patterns, the potting mix should completely dry. This will apply surface soil to subsoil around the root bowl.
• Before water jade plant check the surface soil dry up.
• Then check the subsoil around the root bowl soil dry. For this, you can use a dry stick or soil moisture meter.

Using a stick to check moisture.

• When using a dry stick, dig that stick as much as you can. For better results, pull the stick up to the bottom of the pot. Then let few minutes absorb the potting mix moisture to the stick.
• Pull the stick and check it has moisture. If you can see mud, then the potting mix has enough moisture to thrive.

Using a moisture meter.

• You can use a moisture meter on the market. With these meters, you can get a more accurate result than the dry stick method.

After you verified that your Crassula ovata plant potting mix dries up completely, you can water. I recommend water directly to the soil. The soak and dry method is the ideal watering system.

In this way, the potting mixture is thoroughly moistened. This will ensure that all the soil layers of the plant are adequately watered.