When I looked at the big Crassula ovata "jade" plant yesterday afternoon, I saw that a single flower had opened. This morning, I'll be curious to see if any others have bloomed overnight. Walt, like me, says he doesn't remember ever seeing a jade plant bloom before, and we kept a lot of them in and around the house when we lived in San Francisco.
Here's a full view of the jade plant. For the summer, it stays outdoors, and this year we've brought it in for the winter and set it on a table under a west-facing roof window (Vélux). Maybe it is afternoon light (I can't say "sun" because it's been cloudy most days since I got back from North Carolina on October 24) that has caused it to flower.
I have a book called The Larousse Guide to House Plants, written by Alan Titchmarsh and published in the early 1980s, that confirms this about this variety of jade: "In the wild, white flowers appear in summer which turn pink with age, but this plant seldom blooms in cultivation." The one here has not only bloomed in cultivation but it has bloomed in November.
And here is another photo of the linden/"lime"/tilleul tree in our back yard, on the west side of the house. Its leaves are really falling now. I wish I knew when it was planted. We won't be having it pruned back, but we are planning to have the big blue spruce tree just to the left of it taken down this winter or next spring. The spruce appears to be close to death.
Hi Ken! I just got reminded of your blog this morning because I got a notification that there was a comment on another post of yours that I had commented on years ago. I hope you are well going into this Holiday season. It's great to see both you and Walt still blogging away. It must be quite a nice record of your years in France.
ReplyDeleteHello Betty, thanks for your nice comment/message. You're right, the blogs are a nice record of our time here and in this house. We consult them all the time to refresh our memory. By the way, l'Aveyron is on our list of places we want to visit over the next few years. Rodez of course, Conques, Villefranche, and even Saint-Flour. We'll start looking for a gîte next year.
DeleteThe flower of the jade plant is lovely! They must be very happy with you to bloom like this.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that jade plants thrive on neglect.
DeleteI'm enjoying seeing your jade's bloom- remarkable! What a beautiful plant. I remember seeing jade bloom in sidewalk cracks in San Francisco.
ReplyDeleteSan Francisco has the right climate for jade plants — not too hot, not too cold, not too wet.
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ReplyDeleteMy two cents. Plants usually bloom in summer time. If they are native to the Southern Hemisphere, like the Christmas cactus, they'l bloom there in summer, which means they'll bloom in winter time in the Northern Hemisphere. QED
I'm not sure I buy that. Don't you think plants respond to light, temperature, and moisture conditions more that to genetic memory of some kind? I'm hoping my jade bonsai isn't getting ready to give up the ghost.
DeleteSo the spruce will be going to the big forest in the sky - farewell spruce.
ReplyDeleteThe poor spruce. I've looked back at photos of it from 10 or 12 years ago, and realized what sad shape it is in.
DeleteI’ve never seen a jade plant in bloom. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThat plant - and the bloom especially - looks so beautiful! Never seen one flowering either. Ken, how do you keep your plant(s) so 'spotless'? When I spray mine, they have water stains on all the leaves. Is it because our water is so hard? Do you use rain water? It looks as if you've been bathing, drying and buffing it. ;)
ReplyDeleteI don't do anything much to the jade plants besides water them once in a while and give them a bath a couple of times a year to remove dust from their leaves. Our water is pretty hard too, and no, I don't use rainwater (at least not often). I think the leaves on the jade looks shiny like that because I took the photo with the flash on. By the way, I have reserved that gîte you told me about for a week in April.
DeleteYou do have green fingers though, I think. All your plants seem to be flourishing. Great news about the gîte! I'm alrerady looking forward to hearing what it is like and seeing your pictures (and April also means it's springtime again - yay!).
DeleteHow beautiful is that! I have not seen one bloom in England, although a few of my pals have them as house plants. Lots of wet weather and floods in our area at the moment, so winter root crops are taking a beating on the farm.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping more flowers will open up over the coming week.
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