Any advice on training a jade plant to be a bonsai?

I bought a small jade plant from Home Depot. The more I learn about training my Fujian the more I want to try and train the jade plant. What I want to know is can I use this jade to make a bonsai? It's only 6 or 7 inches tall and I currently have it in a 4 inch pot. It's in really good health.

Any advice on training a jade plant to be a bonsai?
Jade plants are very special. They can over time become larger than you. Some tips, if you are trying to get a special look...


1) Find it a very nice pot to start, and you might want to get one large enough to allow it to grow as opposed to root binding it to slow it down. Sounds like a nice decorative 6 inch pot would be good, then find a specimen for the four inch pot. Give it time to grow and acclimate in it's new home. Find a nice window for it, a sunny spot, indoors. It will get burnt up outside and buggy as it is a greenhouse product and not use to it. When you get it a good spot in the house, that's it's home. It won't do well if moved to conditions that vary much.


2) In summer keep it watered a bit to keep it from drying out, but don't overdo it or leave it too wet with a really heavy soil or it will rot and die. Obviously the pot or container you chose must have drain holes to let the excess water out and give good gas exchange. Roots need oxygen too and old gases are pushed out, new gases pulled in, by the movement of water threw the pot (like a pump). Every once in a while turn the plant so that all sides get a bit of sun evenly, maybe 1 or 2 times a week. The art of plants in the East is a Zen experience. Contemplation, relaxation, meditation. It may take a week to decide that a specific leaf is not correct, then another to decide to remove it or manipulate it. The jade needs less winter watering but don't let it dry to the point of withered leaf. If and when it blossoms, do not encourage that. They are somewhat interesting but waste the plants energies. Clip the flowers off.


3) Feed the plant lightly. Below is a great web site with excellent photos, Especially one labeled "nobbit", for it's use of a pot that was just right. Excellent care instructions so I'll not paraphrase it.





Have fun and enjoy your plant. You might find a real good plant for that 4" pot by looking around outside for a stunted and mistreated plant. My best bonsai to date was a little Black Pine that grew right at the road side. So close to the road this little pine was mowed probably 20 times and squashed over and over. When I found it it was 4-5 inches of twisted stump with tiny limbs. I dug it out in a huge shovel full and brought it home and cleaned it up. It was early in the year so I had to be careful, this time of year is the worst to dig and move stuff. I had a little lump of twisted drift wood (I live on the ocean) I tied the plant down to to train it slowly until they grew together over the course of the year. Eventually I gave it to my Mom, my mentor in all things green before I eventually went to AG school. The long and short, look around in places like the roadside or rock cliffs where little clumps of blown in dirt give homes to twisted little abused trees with wonderful shapes that just scream to you "Meditate On Me!"
Reply:No, you can't train a jade plant to be a 'bonsai' because the leaves are 'too large' and need 'room' ... and because the jade grows only about an inch a year (two inches at most) because it gets 'new leaves' only in the spring, and it has very few branches, and the 'new leaves' are all 'one inch' from the last year's leaves. Also, the jade plant had a 'really heavy root system' and it would turn brown and die when planted in the traditional 'shallow pot' used for bonsai. May I make a suggestion. Try to see how LARGE you can get your jade to grow (and THAT is 'doable' although it's difficult) while keeping it as a 'house plant' and get an 'easier' plant to 'bonsai' ... and you have a 'large variety of choices,' just among the 'maples' alone to do that (maple is the 'easiest' to do your first bonsai with, and because maple is naturally a 'long lived tree' it can be a 'bonsai' to be 'passed on' to the person who you'll 'train' to take care of it, and then to that person's heir. But ... choose any of the 'easier' bonsai plants to start, and then see how LARGE you can get your jade to grow, and set them 'side by side' with the bonsai 'outside' and the 'huge jade' inside, for 'looks, comparison, and fun.'