The Art of Growing Plants (MN, Zone 4) Sharing my experiences of growing tropical plants in containers, bringing them outside in the summer and inside in the fall. Something i dont see is how to plant and care for tropical plants so they thrive in a cold place. A lot of the videos and tips i see are very generic and have not worked well enough for me in the past. I like weird and rare plants that you dont normally see in Minnesota or the Midwest. I like Bonsai, succulents, flowering and fruiting plants, and fragrant plants. I also dont like to spend a ton of money on this lifestyle and i am sure there are plenty of you who feel the same way so i find alternatives that work and share with you. Always experimenting with new ideas and honing tried and true ones also. Enough rambling, enjoy!
Hi! @Horticulture Warrior :) I am currently working on a video science project and wanted to ask your permission to highlight a clip of this video? ❓I would fully credit you of course! 🙏
I want mine to be as bushy as the before… I’m gonna have to prune it like crazy over the years to get it branched out and super dense. Question is if I can wait that long for it to happen 🥲
this is the exact video i was seeking bnecuase i have passion fruit on the way i wanted to know if i could grow it indoors over the winter also in minnesota 4b am next to lake supirior
Wow! The update of the jade plant where you removed all leaves is looking great. I have an old jade that I pruned back in April, also repotted it. The leaves coming back are few and have mealybugs. Thinking of separating them into 3 pots as the trunks of each are thick. Does it take this long for new leaves..I'm worried I've killed it unintentionally. ..it's summer here in Canada so I'm willing to try and save it.
Hi friend! The mealy bugs is what is stunting its growth. Also is it getting enough sun? It will need lots of sun to recover. If your mealybug issue is really bad, is it indoors? I have less bugs in the plant when outdoors. Dont let too much rain get on it. Hope those will help!
@Horticulture_Warrior thanks for your response. Yes, it's indoors and has alway been as it was too heavy to move outdoors. But now with less leaves I would like to move it outdoors. Currently it's facing a north facing window in our living room. I'm spraying it with alcohol and/or neem oil for the pests. Little growth of fresh new leaves.
Yeah i had mine indoors on north facing window. It is the worst location for sunlight. Mine were struggling, stunted, and dropped branches due to the poor lighting and mealybug. Brought it outside and it flourish. I had a huge jade plants w many large trunks. It was hard to move. Then i decided to separate them into diff plants and that made it easier to move.
@@Horticulture_Warrior I totally agree with your points. Today I uprooted the large jade (outdoors)and one stem was rotted. The other stems have some roots and are not rotted. So, I've cut the rot up until I see white/light, will let these callous and repot separately. My question is...do I water the stems that have roots once potted up? Do I water the bare stems once potted up? All the stems have no leaves on them. I've cut the few leaves off because of mealybugs...when can I realistically expect leaves starting. Thanks for all your help in trying to save this very old jade...wish me luck!!
@annettenoga6182 this all depends on the soil mix. Be very careful and have premoist medium. Some soil mixes from the store come very very dry to a point where they are hydrophobic and do not wet easily. When you water this type of soil. The top might look soggy but where the soil touches the roots its completely dry. But put it in some premoist soil and leave the cutting in a spot where theres not as much direct light for a few wks and slowly move them out once you see new growth. At this point you can start to water. Once the plant is in a spot with ample light (not necessarily direct sunlight all day, at least evening sun is good) and is warm they should grow roots quite fast. The healthy plants can go out to ample light right away. My jades currently only get morning and evening light and are thriving. Hope that helps. Best of luck!!
I had responded previously but it doesnt look like it posted. If the plant is trimming its own branches it means it is not healthy. Mine did this when i had really bad mealy bugs. Its actually still doing it now. I will try to make a video of it today....be careful as this could lead to a mushy trunk. An unhealthy plant will be more susceptible to root rot and then trunk rot and theres no coming back from that....if you have bugs the best thing to do is use strong jets of water and spray them off. If your soil is poor it might be good to get some good soil for it and provide it with lots of sunlight. Be care to not put it in direct sunlight immediately...
Yes, soon. 😊. I am hoping as the weather warms up and i am able to take care of some personal things i can bring the plants outside and start making some update videos. We got an 85* day last week but plummeted back down to 30* lows this week. I was also out of the country for a while. The mealy bugs are out of hand and i will do a video of how bad they can get. Thank you for your patience. Will upload some new vdeos soon. 😊
Where's the update mister? It's been three years and no video. Did it ever fruit again? Did they ripen? How was the size? What did they taste like? Come on now. 🫴
You missed the other videos and comments. I no longer have this plant so i cant answer those questions. With enough lighting i am certain it would have ripened. Cheers
Hello my friend. I just feed it with water soluble fertilizer every other week in the summer. They like frequent diluted fertilizer. Depends on what you want. If you want fruits then feed it fertilizer with more phosphorus. Cheers!
You talk about carving on the Y branches… will those branches not die back to the next node? I see you carve them below the scar line. I always hesitate to carve below the node line in fear of having it die back further than I want. What’s your experience in cutting in these areas?
No not a single 1 has died back and they shouldnt. There is still continuity from the roots to the branches. They have all healed nicely and no longer have a 90 degree transition but rather a fillet.
I’d agree with it as a Lady Finger, but I’m no pro. I have 2 similar to this and thought they were both Gollums but as I research, I believe they are a Hobbit and a Coral- this might be what yours is.
Wish i could post a pic that would clearly show the difference between all the different crassula ovata mutations. I saw it online once but cant seem to find it anymore. U would have to look very closely at the leaves as they are very similar but the degree of how much they fold or roll is what sets them apart. Lady finger being almost pencil like is the most extreme. To complicate things even more u may have a small portion of the leaves be closer to a diff variant. E.g. lady fingers having a handful of ogre or hobbit looking leaves.
Exactly. One of mine is like this. A majority of lady fingers (aka coral?) and then there are a few Ogars ears in there. Another one I have is a Hobbit. It clearly has spoon shaped leaves on many with a mix of what looks like Ogar ears. Thanks for clarifying.
Well hello fellow Minnesotan!! Sorry to hear your jade is not doing well. We have to get to the "root" cause (pun intended). Is the soil overly wet? If it is you need to remove the plant from the soil asap and clean it up, dry it out, and then repot. It is most likely sufferring from root rot. If you can confirm the soil condition or any other details that would help in the correct path for remediation.
I had never experienced mealy bugs until a couple of years ago when someone brought me a collection of succulents from Florida. They looked very healthy. Apparently they had been treated before sale. After two months I broke up the collection and placed them in a few different pots. What a mistake that was. Soon after my Portulacaria Afras began to show white spots on them which were apparently feasting on my precious plants. I have been struggling with the monsters ever since. They do not seem to like my larger Jade plants as much as they like smaller more tender leaves. They have destroyed a few Portulacarias and I have others that are still struggling. Mealy bugs seem to love Portulacarias. The Portulacarias do have more tender places for the bugs to chew on than some of my other succulents. I have tried every recommended approach to getting rid of the monsters but they always show up again. I finally gave up and purchased a systemic insecticide that stated that it would kill mealy bugs. I washed the plants, cleaned the pots, and repotted them with brand new soil but one month later I am seeing new nests and bugs on my Portulacarias! I am so discouraged. I am now considering just throwing out the plants that I have been trying to save for two years. The smaller Portulacarias are looking poorly. Some of my tropical plants have gotten infected despite not being near to the succulents. I heard one plant person say that the bugs are airborne at one stage of development. I didn’t believe it but apparently it is true. I hate the horrible things. Anyone know of an insecticide that actually kills mealy bugs?
Yes they are a real pain. I have struggled with them as well. I think the best method is to use insecticidal soap and do it constantly. I am just trying to keep the plants alive and not deteriorate in health during winter. Once spring and summers comes i will try spraying insecticidal soaps and using a pesticide that is abosrbed thru the roots and use these more frequently. Maybe every 2wks. I have had luck in the past w treating a crabapple tree through the roots method for caterpillar/larvae so i am hopeful. Stay tuned for results of the experiment even if it may take awhile. In the meantime, if u have space and time to spray the plants down to physically knock off the majority of bugs off and then use the insecticide that may be more effective and could reduce your interval for control. Cheers!
@@Horticulture_Warrior so you have tried the insecticidal soap sprays? They didn’t harm your plants? I didn’t try that because some people said that the insecticidal soap killed their plants. Do you have to wash the spray off after application or does it remain on the plant?
I havent tried the soap but i have tried a spray. I left it on and it was fine. Tho i have tried it on some plants that did not like it. I would recommend trying it on a small area (1 cluster of leaves) first and see how your plant reacts. Also maybe try spraying it off after 20-30 min and see if that helps with anything. I havent tried spraying it off. The one thing that my succentlents really hate is alcohol spray. I mixed it with water and most of my succulents did not like that. The leaves on my jades and portulacaria fell off. Took all summer to recover.
@@Horticulture_Warrior looking forward to that. I just bought some jades, and want to learn as much as possible. I live in cold Sweden, so I keep them indies with led light, and it seems to work quite well.🥶🥶Merry Christmas🎄🎁
@harrietb2141 that is awesome! I live in Minnesota, United States and it gets very cold here. The nice thing about Jades is as long as you have some sort of window with light it will do just fine. And once you are able to bring outside they will thrive again. Beat thing you can do for them is to prune them and get rid of the weak and lanky growth. Excited for you! Jades are wonderful and easy to care for as long as you let the soil dry out before watering again.
@@Horticulture_Warrior Thank you for answer. I Will put them outside , in sommer. Can’t Wait till spring , to prune them.☺️I hope they Will be as beatiful as yours.😻
@harrietb2141 yes for sure. I think they are in good hands as you are doing the necessary research. I should do a video soon of the winter struggles that i have to go thru so others dont feel discouraged. I dont have a very good window (east facing) so my plants dont do as well and i deal withbmy fair share of bugs. I think at least the video will help give others hope that once spring time comes around the plants will bounce back and be just fine and thriving again. 😊
Unfortunately it, is no longer a part of my collection. It was a beautiful plant but 1 with the least sentimental value out of all the plants that are left. The plant collection keeps getting smaller until i can find a dwelling that has the appropriate conditions to have a lot of plants again. I may have to sell all my plants at this rate 😥
You are absolutely correct. I have struggled with this for years and still do. It has taken me decades to feel better about throwing cuttings away. If i have space i will keep some of the larger cuttings and put them all into a single pot and give them away. Otherwise i am content with tossing them. I really dont have the space and dont want to mentally burden myself with trying to make every cutting and every leaf its own plant. Its a matter of convincing yourself that the mother plant got a haircut and those were meant to be nipped off and tossed to maintain the health and beauty of that plant. If you can share it with a friend or get another plant out of it, its just an added bonus. 😉 recently i tossed a grocery bag full of cuttings and did not feel too bad about doing it. Only a tiny bit. The mother looks fabulous tho so that helps. 😅
@@Horticulture_Warrior yes, my jade plant was so damn healthy I became anxious it was getting too bushy. A robust pruning today has made me feel happy with it's gorgeous thick stems and taken away any anxiety.
@girlinagale great to hear!!! And kudos to you for having the courage to do it. Ive seen so many people who just let their plants waste away because they get scared to prune it or they feel bad for cutting branches off. Just to have their plants end up weak and lanky. I always live by the saying "sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind". I believe my prunings are always for a better end even tho the process sometimes looks like it's doing more harm than good and could take years to start looking like what i had envisioned. Wish i could show you the before and after of my 25+ year old bougainvillea. It was about 6ft tall and about 7ft wide. I loved this plant but at that rate it would not fit thru the doorway so if i wanted to keep it i would have to do something drastic. I chopped it down to a 6 inch stump and 6yrs later it is a beautiful 1.5ft bonsai with an almost 3 inch trunk. 😊
Thank you! I did end up taking a bit more off after i stared at it a bit longer. Shes nice and balanced now. I will reassess next yr and may even decide to bring the canopy up a bit more. Very healthy now. When i first got it all the leaves were scorched from previous owner bringing it out into the sun without acclimating.
@ToDoGoodWill i highly do not recommend doing so unless you are able to provide an environment for vigorous growth. If you are not and even if it does survive you will have very weak and undesirable growth anyway. And with no leaves for water consumption you will need to be very careful with watering. I would wait and scalp it in the summer after the plant has shown signs of vigorous growth.
I'm in a similar situation; I'm thinking of doing the same to a large, leggy potted plumeria that I've come to own. How is yours doing after three years?
I no longer have many of my plants. Not sure if you have been following but i went from a large house to an apt and having over 300 plants in an apt would be difficult. With that being said the plant did really well. My biggest recommendation is do not prune until the plant is in a vigorous state. So midsummer. I highly recommend pruning these back as their natural habit is to spread out like a fan so the closer to the previous branch junctions u can get the new one the size of the plant will be exponentially smaller. Hope that helps. Cheers 🍻
If you are bringing it inside and want to reduce the amount of space required for the plant then just prune it so that it's more manageable and doesnt take up too much space. The real pruning should happen in spring when it starts to become vigorous. I was going to leave the tree how it was but it would have taken up 9-12 sqft of space (3×3 to 3×4 ft) now it takes up a little over 1sqft. I have a large branch that i am contemplating cutting but i wont be doing that now. If i cut it now new branchs may not grow immediately in that area. When you cut a branch during the plants vigor state, the cut actually tells the plant where the new branchs need to grow. But cutting it now, the plant would heal and the signal that would have been there from the fresh cut would be gone by the time spring comes around and the plant becomes more vigorous.
Hi! I mix my own fertilizer. It depends on what you are trying to accomplish. I also fertilize with water soluable miracle grow. The blue granules. If you are trying to get flowers and fruit find a fertilizer that is high in phosphorus. You can find this information on the packaging. They will give you 3 numbers called the NPK number. N is for nitrogen, P is for phosphorus, and K is for potassium. Find a fertilizer that has a higher middle number. For example 2-10-2, or 10-50-10, etc. I buy my nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium granules in seperate bags and mix. You dont have to do that but its an option. For the water soluable fertilizer i would use it twice a week in the summer. I dont fertilize in the winter. Hope that helps. Cheers!!
@@Horticulture_Warrior yes definitely, thank u so much . I’m about to take them in for the Texas winter for probably the 7 days of freezing we will get . Appreciate the advice maybe these will pop now next summer .👍
The more I watch, the more I think I'm going to need a winter greenhouse. It's sadly that they need so much time, because the yellow ones are growing the best so far. I moved them into the house in mid-October, just before the frost. They were fine and sort of went dormant until I had to move them because of the cats. That's when most started to stretch out, hopefully good lighting will help Thanks for the content, there is not a lot of it in similar climate conditions
That is very true. Even in places like Vietnam where it is very hot and have plenty of sun, i have seen farmers use supplemental lighting at night for dragon fruit. I think it is to get the fruits to market faster. Good luck. Cheers!
No, ive never had troubles with squirrels eating my kaffir limes. I had a lot of other plants that they would prefer to eat. I did have squirrel problems recently. They were eating my morning glory and other sapplings. They way i got around this was i would leave scorpion peppers that were opened up. I also made a scorpion pepper and garlic spray that i sprayed on the plants. After a few encounters with this, they stopped showing up. 🤣
@@Horticulture_Warrior Excellent warrior I had about half of my newly pollinated flowers/limes destroyed by some very ravenous squirrels. Unfortunately all of my plants in my backyard are at the base of about 120-year-old Pinot with a squirrel metropolis in it so I’m gonna have a start cajun them up or screening them up or something or sit outside with my air rifle and you know barbecue some squirrel. We’ll see what happens lol
@brandonsmith3447 lol. Yeah pesty squarrels can be very annoying. I hope you bringing the heat to them resolves your issue! Good luck my friend! Let me know how it goes. Cheers!!!
Great video! I have a very large jade plant that is very leggy and top heavy where the branches cannot support themselves. I've noticed some mealybugs after a minor pruning this past summer where the new growth is coming from. Can I prune back now in October in Canada or wait until spring time. Please advise.
You can prune a little bit but i would recommend pruning in the spring when the plant starts growing vigorously again. The plant is going into dormancy and prob wont grow much if pruned back hard. And even if it does you may get weak growth in return that you will most likely not like anyways. The reason it is leggy is due to a lack of sunlight. It is growing and trying to reach for more light. This cause it to be leggy and then not being able to support all that rxtra length. If you want it to be bushy, then wait until its out in full sun next yr and the prune back. Since there is a lot of sun it will not feel a need to reach and it will put out a lot of sun receptacles (leaves) to take in all that sun. Therefor you will have a much tight growth. Hope that helps. Cheers!
@@Horticulture_Warrior ok thanks! I think it's best I prune a bit because it's so tall & top heavy it might fall before then. I know the growth would be minimal but the thickness of the trunk will sustain it until an abundance of growth will occur in spring/summer. Thanks again!
@annettenoga6182 yes, if you must prune now then prune it just a bit longer than you would want. Like to the next node. That way, any weak scraggly growth that does appear thru winter can be pruned off again in the spring without that branch being shorter than desired! I was in the same situation with my bougie. Did not want to prune but had to because it was too big. It was about 4ft wide. After pruning it was btwn 1-1.5ft wide. Saved a ton of space.
I've seen this method as described before, tried twice earlier this year on a plant I want to propagate but no luck. I may have forgot to put aluminum foil on it though. It is the sun. Did you finally have success with this and how long did it take?
Yes, this worked for me. Couple of things to remember tho. You have better success rate when the plant is growing vigorously. The other thing is i noticed that if i wrap it too tight the wound ends up healing and bridging thr gap vs growing new roots. Another issue i had was the clump of potting mix drying out. I use a syringe to rehydrate it.
I have a bunch of Epiphyllum and wanted to get a jump start on growing DF, so I plan to do this. Someone suggested that it shouldn't be a problem but I wanted to see if anyone had done it before. I also have some Christmas Cactus and I think it would be fun to graft them onto a taller growing plant. Thanks for sharing your tips, new sub here.
Thats awesome! Yes DF is a great rootstock. I have seen some cacti for sale at the big box stores that were grafted to DF root stock. I have a video of a large piece of DF with a bunch of different varieties of xmas cactus grafted on. Not sure if you have seen that uet but they ended up doing great and got really plump! Cheers!
Ah! You found the video. I was just mentioning this video on the reply to your comment on another video. I dont put anything in the water bottle but water. Some people have used alcohol but it doesnt seem to work any better than just using a jet of water to blast the mealy bugs off. I will periodic have to take the plants to the bath tub or to the garage to spray them down to blast bugs off if it gets too bad. I also use a small paint brush to brush off the mealy bugs when indoors. The obly bugs that i seem to be constantly battling with are mealy bugs.
Great video. Very informative! What is best way to encourage new strong roots? I inherited a big jade and roots could be better.. its recovering from repot and prune but winter is on the way.. i want her to be as happy as possible!
Hey Eric! Thats awesome to hear. Congrats on inheriting an old jade plant! Yes there are ways to encourage root growth. I have seen people use rooting hormones after pruning to encourage root growth even tho i have not personal used that method myself. The way that i would do it is to use a heating mat. Warm soil encourages root growth and air circulation. Along with a good airy soil mix this thing should bounce back in no time. Does the jade have any roots left or is it like mine where its basically a large cutting? If it has roots still it will bounce back very fast esp with the assistance of a heating mat. Check out how this jade is doing in my most recent video. It took a really long time for this 50yo jade to start flushing out but i think its thru the critical phase now. With consistent watering after the soil has almost completely dried out each time this thing will be thriving shortly.
Yea I saw the update vid.. yea luckily it still had some roots.. I didn't go as far as root pruning.. this plant kept getting knocked over and got reported twice recently then had to drive it in the bed of my truck to get it home.. I didn't want to harm it so I knocked off old soil but left the roots be. I will look into heat pad.. I watered it once a week ago and leaves still not dully plump so I'll check bottom of soil then maybe water again. Thanks!
@ericmumper5608 yeah depending on the soil you use and how dry it is, it could have become hydrophobic. This has happened to me when using new potting mix. The peat based mix becomes so dry that it repels water and doesnt really get "wet" and the plant doesnt come in contact with the moisture to absorb it. Did you presoak the soil mix to ensure its fully hydrated and them squeeze excess water out before potting? If you havent, i would recommend doing this. After you have squeezed as much water out as possible, add in some more perlite. Some may have gotten crushed from the squeezing.
@@Horticulture_Warrior that's interesting. I did not pre hydrate. I'm going to water it again soon.. maybe I'll wet the top slow and also bottom water in a tray to make sure it's absorbing water
@ericmumper5608 if you have a moisture meter (which i highly recommend. ~$10) you can check to see if it is well hydrated. Even with slow watering and even letting it sit in a tub of water may not be enough depending on how dry the mix is. Dont mean to scare you but this has been a big issue for me in the past and i dont want something like this to kill a rather healthy jade. After watering u can dig some of the mix up and see. If you have any super dry mix come up at all then you can be certain there are other areas that are not hydrated. If you can repot it again, thats what i would do. Just put the mix into a buck and use boiling or really hot water. This helps to hydrate things. After the water cools down a bit i go in there with my hands and mix and squeeze the mixture. Best of luck my friend!
You can use any light that is full spectrum. I bought some lights on sale that were meant to be work lights. 10k lumens and full spectrum. Black friday and before xmas are good times to buy at homedepot or menards. Thats where i got mine for $25 each. You dont need to spend hundreds of dollars. Cheers!
Hi! I am good. Lots of stuff going on. Looking to get some update videos up soon. Today is the day to move all of the plants inside before winter. How are you?
@@Horticulture_Warrior I’m doing great Thank You! I’m glad that you are doing fine. 😁 can’t wait for the new video. I bought a 15 years old jade plant. Hopefully you can detail where to put the jade plants and other plants.
@ToDoGoodWill wow. That is awesome! Congrats on the new addition! Love jades. New video is up. Just an update on my jades. Any specific questions let me know. Cheers!
Yes, def can be eaten like a lot of cacti but def not great and theres really not much to eat. Eaten? yes. Enjoyable? Not really 😅. Thanks for watching and commenting. Try eating it and let me know what you think.
