Hello, I live in barcelona. My jade plant was already in the house when we bought it last year. It never looked fully healthy, but recently it's been looking worse. A lot of leaves have fallen and the they have been turning a brownish red. Most of them have white spots on them, which I've read can be excess salt that the plant needs to get rid off. Does anyone have any idea what could possibly be wrong with the plant?

Hello!
That's a beautiful Jade tree in bad shape and in dire need of some care and attention (:
The tree must be pretty old, it is beautiful indeed.
Has the tree always been out in the sun or was it kept indoor earlier and has been brought out in the light only recently? Because my Jade leaves began turning reddish when I almost suddenly shoved it into the open direct sun, and then I learnt that it has to be acclimatised gradually. The reddish margins of leaves are an indicator of good health though- that's what I have learnt. It means they're getting sufficient light.

How often do you water the tree?
To me, the wrinkled leaves look like they have been probably underwatered. Or maybe, the roots have failed. But I see some new growth on the tips.

The white spots could be pest infestation? I have no clue about that, sorry.

People here might be able to help you better! I myself am new to this, but have been taking care of a Jade for almost six months now; so I have a tiny bit of experience
People over here are super helpful and I now have a healthy Jade plant owing to their efforts & help
Good luck with that tree!

Queen

It is getting way too much sun/light. I would move it to a bright location, NOT a "sunny location". Perhaps a spot of an hour or so of early morning sun.
If you cut back on the light and keep your watering consistent, the jades appearance will improve. Jades grow a bit on the dry side but they appreciate a stable environment. The amount of sun is stressing your plant.

Hello Queen. try to give it a thorough watering first. Looks quite deyhdrated. If your winter is mild winter like ours, it will enjoy the current cool conditions. Do check if that container has drain holes. Always important to have drain holes to remove excess salt accumulation and excess water.

Try to position the plant for now as close to your house, but still getting some sun.It is okay to see the leaves turn red. That is normal reaction of the plant when it gets sunshine while temps are cold. Some leaves are bound to drop for sure, since they really look quite dehydrated. But I do see the trunk and branches looking firm. As long as there are no mushy parts, it still has good potential to recover. Just try to allow it get as much light outdoors.

Just leave alone the leaves. It seemed to have experienced a cycle where it got too overwatered hence the edema blisters on the leaf, and it dried out. It will just bear those scars. Eventually it will grow newer leaves, and those scarred ones will just naturally dry out and die. I am looking closely at the photos, and I already see some new growth at the tips, so the plant is slowly redirecting its energies to the new growth. Just be patient. If it is not raining there at all right now, just give it once a week watering, and allow it to dry, delay watering further if soil still looks moist.. Be patient. The plant is a slow growing type. Crassulas actually like cooler temps down to 30F (-1C) as long as it is kept dry. Do not apply any fertilizers, just allow the plant to slowly recover.

Decide later on, do you want to keep it growing outdoors or indoors. It has better growth outdoors. As long as it has acclimated properly to outdoor conditions, it can ably handle direct sun and soaring hot temps during summer 100F++ (37C++). When temps are higher then you increase watering a bit more. When temps are colder got to tone it down. Occasional rain in winter is okay with it, provided the media has been made very well draining. It is at temperatures down to 20F (-6C) that I start seeing cold damage to most succulents. So if you happen to have that kind of weather forecast, cover the plant on those very cold dreary winter nights.

I do not want to disturb the roots of your plant right now, it is winter. Typically if it seems there might be root issues, I will delay it to Spring. Disturbing it right now will just expose it to more fungal issues due to the cooler temperatures. Offhand, I do not see any reason at all to poke around the root zone, unless there are no drain holes. then it will be very imperative to correct that issue first, otherwise it will be very bad for the plant.

BigBill said:It is getting way too much sun/light. I would move it to a bright location, NOT a "sunny location". Perhaps a spot of an hour or so of early morning sun.
If you cut back on the light and keep your watering consistent, the jades appearance will improve. Jades grow a bit on the dry side but they appreciate a stable environment. The amount of sun is stressing your plant.

It is impossible to provide too much sun to a jade plant at this time of year (at that latitude in the northern hemisphere), unless it's coming right out of a really dark place, like deep shade. I would recommend a sunny location for a healthy growing plant. Hours of daily sun. Come spring and summer you might pull it back into a bit more shade when the sun reaches higher in the sky, but lots of light will be helpful at this time of year, and if the plant is indoors you should try to provide the most sun you possibly can. Now with a plant that is already distressed (not due to the sun, due to something else) you might err on the side of protection, but I still recommend hours of daily sun.

Based on the pictures the plant looks pretty unhealthy. Can you scrape off those white spots? They could be bugs. I think the plant may have been suffering already at the time you got it, and you may not have actually done anything to make it worse. The leaves look really dehydrated, like the roots are not functioning or the plant is somehow in a bad state of health for another reason. Is there a hole at the bottom of the pot? How often and how much are you watering?

Hello everyone, thank you all for your help.
@queen 1694 @bigbill @tarev @Baja_costero
The plant was originally on the balcony, i brought it indoors in winter because I felt that it could've been too cold for it, and then took it back out when the leaves started falling off a lot and the white spots appeared. I don't think it's getting more sun than it needs since it's in a spot that gets light for a couple of hours during the day.
Since all of you mentioned that the pot has to have a draining hole and it does not, i think this is the main issue.
The white spots can be scraped of and not all the leaves have them so I don't think they are bugs, they look more like dry powder of some sort.
Do you guys think I should repot it now or should I wait till spring? Also is there any kind of fertiliser I could use to help it?
I was watering it once every 10-15 days then I decreased the frequency because I thought I was overwatering it at the time.
I have a double glazed window that gets direct sunlight and that was where the plant was, I also put an aloe vera next to it and it became all brown the next day and the leaves got saggy. Maybe the double glass is burning the plants I put next to it?
Thanks again, Jo

It's best not to shuttle the plant in and out too much if temperatures are getting low outside. Lots of changes are not usually helpful when a plant is stressed. How cold does it get there in Barcelona? If it's going to be inside, ideally find a spot right next to a southerly-facing window that gets hours of sun a day.

I will try to take pictures of the scale insects that recently appeared on the leaves of one of my jades, so you can compare.

Avoid fertilizer while the plant is stressed out. It should be unnecessary and may actually be harmful if you're not careful to use a low dose (like 1/4 of the recommended amount, or less). In any case I don't think it will improve the appearance of the plant.

If you repot now, do it when the soil is dry and be sure not to water immediately afterwards. Wait a week or more to water, otherwise you run the risk of causing complications due to rot. I would think it best to wait until the start of spring to repot, and in the meantime try to avoid watering in a way that causes a lake of water to pool at the bottom of the container.

Any kind of sharp increase in light may be stressful to your succulents (that may explain the change in appearance of your aloe) so when in doubt, make gradual, stepwise changes over time. But indoor sun is fundamentally different from outdoor sun, much kinder to plants, because regular window glass blocks much of the harmful UV rays in sunlight. It is basically impossible to provide too much sun to your jade or your aloe indoors if you introduce them to it gradually over the course of a few weeks, and if there's good air flow so that the part of the plants/pots facing the sun doesn't get really hot.

Sunlight passing through glass will be weaker than direct sun, never stronger, unless the glass is curved in a way that causes a lensing effect.

Scale insect infestation of jade leaves looks like this, so you know...

yes! And scale can be scraped off with fingernail. Blisters, not so much.

Jade Plants are beautiful but frustrating. They die from too much watering and too little. They die from too humid conditions. They die from too much light and too little.

I bought a Jade plant in New York City 40 years ago and carried it in a heavy 5 gallon unglazed pot to 15 blocks (not realizing how far away my friend and I had gone).

I set it in a room that had strong indirect light and set a grow-bulb over it. I watered it only when it rained in Phoenix Arizona. I put 1/4" of compost on the soil once a year. It lived happily for 5 years.

Then I moved. I gave it nearly the same conditions but it slowly died. I came to the conclusion that jade plants only grow in perfect conditions where they grow naturally and gave up.

But I sure liked it while it lived...

I think watering when the soil goes dry is much more likely to benefit the plant than watering whenever it rains 2000+ miles away. I'm not sure where you got that advice, but I think you were lucky your plant survived that treatment for 5 years. Jades are not from Phoenix, and they don't even do well there because they melt in the heat. Plants here (about half the rainfall of Barcelona, but more than Phoenix) can survive without irrigation in the ground once they are established, but plants in containers in any location only really thrive when they get water on a semi-regular basis, not sporadically and occasionally. Perfect conditions are not required in any case. Natural light is better than electric light if you have a way to provide it.

My advice to JoDeeb is to pay attention to the plant in the room (or on the patio or balcony, as the case may be) and not the weather in a faraway place. Observe the moisture in the soil. When the soil goes dry at depth, water well. That could take 10-15 days this time of year if it's bright and not particularly cold. There is no advantage to allowing the soil to sit bone dry for any extended period. There is a significant risk of adverse consequences if you regularly water while the soil is still moist or wet.

The amount of time it takes for the soil to dry out will depend on temperature, light, humidity and so forth, and thus vary with the seasons. But if you poke your finger into the soil, or put a chopstick in there, you can get some idea of how wet it is. It will take longer to dry out in winter, as a general rule. As long as you generally approximate a cycle of properly wet soil and properly dry soil, alternating on an ongoing basis, your plant can live and do well for many years. Provided it starts out strong, and the pot has holes, and a few other things, of course.

@baja_costero I wouldn't say it gets extremely cold in barcelona I'm winter although there might be a few nights where temperatures will reach 0C (32F) , normally at night it's between 33-40F.
The scale on the leaves look a lot like the ones on your leaves. If it is indeed an infestation how do I get rid of it?
I've sprayed an anti- insect, fungus and mite spray on it about 10days ago but i'm not sure it has helped.
Here are some close up pictures of the scales, some are starting to appear on the new grown leaves .

There are a few things you can do about a scale problem. I am not familiar with the ingredients in that insecticide you used, but they may help. The reason my plant still has an ongoing scale problem (which allowed me to take those pictures yesterday) is that it's not trivially easy to solve. The first thing I did with my plant (a couple of weeks ago) was to prune all the branches that were worst affected. It needed pruning anyway so that was a natural first step. Clearly I have more pruning to do if that is going to be the solution.

I typically do 2 things when one of my succulents starts developing a scale problem. The first is to spray the affected area with a solution of 70% alcohol (ethanol), fairly liberally, all over. If it is possible, depending on the shape of the plant, I then try to use a paper towel or cotton swab to wipe off the bugs right afterwards. The alcohol kills a lot of them and tends to loosen their grip on the plant, so they are easier to wipe off after they have been sprayed with it. The wiping part may not be so feasible with a jade plant (lots of leaves that are easily detached with physical contact). But alcohol is not hard on the jade plant because its leaves have a waxy coating, so you really don't need to worry about the plant suffering because you sprayed too much alcohol on it.

If you can remove the bugs with alcohol (again, not sure how great an option that is with the jade) then you may solve the problem completely that way. Otherwise consider proceeding to step 2, which is a systemic insecticide called imidacloprid (available under various brand names) that is taken up by the plant's roots and incorporated throughout the plant, killing the bugs that eat it. You water the plant with a solution of the insecticide in water (diluted according to the instructions, I think the final concentration is about 0.01% imidacloprid), being careful to saturate the soil on a nice warm day when the plant is fully awake. Then allow the plant to take it up, which may take some time (up to a few weeks). This approach is unfortunately not well suited to plants which are undergoing major stress or have suffered damaged/lost roots, because it requires active participation on the part of the plant to be effective. But it is something you can try, and it is great when it works. In the case of your jade it may not actually cause the bugs to go away, but it would hopefully mean that newly grown leaves are bug-free, and then once the older leaves eventually dry up and fall, the problem is solved.

@baja_costero thanks for all the help,
I will try to do everything you recommended, maybe wait a bit before I use the insecticide and hopefully my plant will be healthy again