New Crassula for 2012

The Jade Plant

Many plants go through fashions just like everything else, to be popular for a time, then to fade into oblivion. Crassula, the Jade plant, is one plant that seems to be meeting with new interest and appreciation.

Some of my favorite succulent plants are the small scale types, and Crassula group has many that fit this description, and work well for accent plants, or as a ground cover in the container of a larger type of Crassula or other succulent.

The trailing and spreading habit of a lot of the smaller ones softens the edges of plantings and pulls the grouping together.

A new idea that appeals to me as one who tinkered in Bonsai, the art of making tiny trees from the real thing is to make Crassula bonsai.

I love the tiny Crassula ovata miniature for this, as they already look like a little tree. Pinching them frequently to force new growth to emerge and potting them in a small pot with very little soil volume will stunt their growth, producing over time, these little trees. There is something about anything miniature that is so appealing.

New Crassula are being trialed all the time, and there are a few new ones that will eventually be produced for sale. There are no new Crassula that I can offer for 2012.

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