Dwarf Jade (Portulacaria Afra, Cork Bark) Transformation in Illinois

[cbrshadow23]

I thought I'd share a Portulacaria Afra project that I've had for about 4.5 years. The tree below started as an experiment in my yard but I started liking the shape so I kept it going. I defoliate the tree once annually and adjust or apply wire. I originally bought it from Frank Yee as a cork bark cutting and let it grow tall, then gave it a chop down to a stump. Grow, chop, grow, chop and so on.


This photo is right after the first chop. The tree stood 30" tall before the chop.



Here's a photo after the tree pushed a bunch of growth. This took a bunch of fertilizer, a bit of a water and a few months in California sun


I chopped the tree back to where I thought made sense, then wired it. Not the cleanest wiring you've ever seen, but it does the job and at this point this was still an experiment tree.


I wont bore you with tons of progress photos, so fast forward to 2 more iterations of 'grow/defoliate/wire' and we're here:


Top view to show some of the ramification



The tree takes a couple weeks to push growth after defoliation, but always pushes nice new leaves.


At this point I moved my family from Northern California to Illinois and sold off most of my tropicals thinking I wouldn't be able to keep them healthy in Illinois. This tree suffered during the move. The picture below shows a repot that my son helped with. The tree was looking rough. Ends up the problem was the ambient temperature being too low where I was keeping it (in the basement). After the repot it popped back to life in a warmer location


Fast forward 14 months later. The tree has been in my climate controlled greenhouse and is doing fantastic.



After more growth and ramification I defoliated the tree (yesterday) and plan on wiring it. I'm happy to see corking starting all over the tree as well. Here's a shot from above (before wire)


And a shot from the front, also before wire.



View attachment IMG_4340.MP4

Anyways, I thought I'd share the project and would love to hear your thoughts.

 

[hemmy]

Well done! Impressive taper to the ramification. Mine really lost its corking when I let it run to thicken.

 

[Michael P]

Great work! Many people do not realize how well Portulacaria ramify with skilled pruning.

 

[cbrshadow23]

Well done! Impressive taper to the ramification. Mine really lost its corking when I let it run to thicken.

Thanks! Strange that yours lost its corking! How long did you have it? Of the hundreds of corkers I've had, I've only ever seen corking improve over time. I wonder if factors like environment, care, or watering schedule played a role.

One interesting experiment I did while living in California was planting a cork-bark from Frank Yee in my front yard. It was right next to my neighbor’s enormous Portulacaria afra, which he had bought at Home Depot 13 years earlier. Both plants shared the same environment but were different varieties. When I planted mine, it was small and had smooth bark, indicating its youth. After two years, it had grown thick and nearly chest-high, but more importantly, its trunk developed deep fissures and extensive corking. In contrast, my neighbor’s plant retained perfectly smooth bark. I dug it up and sold the tree before moving to Chicago, but I wish I had just left it in the yard and checked back in 5+ years.

 

[just.wing.it]

Great Spekboom!
Do you prune back to the first node everytime?

 

[cbrshadow23]

Great Spekboom!
Do you prune back to the first node everytime?

Thanks!
If the tree is getting tons of light (under strong grow lights) the internode length will be so tight that if you clip to the first internode you'll end up with a ball of growth. I try to clip back to the 1st, 2nd or 3rd pair of leaves depending on the internode length.