Question
Good Morning(Somewhere)Could you please help us figure out the best way to clone our Jade tree as well as the best ways to go about caring for ours it indoor pretty old we figured when we got it and we've had two or three years and all of a sudden its starting to die? Please help us!
-Donnie Columbus,Ohio

Answer
Jade trees are used for Bonsai and can last longer than YOU Donnie.

First step: Take cuttings.  This is not easy to do in winter.  The day length usually tells plants to go into R&R mode, not Grow-mode.  But this is a bit of an emergency.

Use a razor blade to slice at an angle the top end main branches, maybe 3 inch lengths, as though you were pruning.  You can dust with #1 hormone powder (do not breathe that stuff) but if it will delay your efforts just go ahead without the powder for now.

Use a pie plate or shallow dish filled with a mix of vermiculite, peat moss and bone meal.  Soak dish contents well to absorb the moisture, then make an angled hole in the growing medium (vermiculate+peatmoss+bonemeal) with a pencil, and insert your cutting.  Inserting at an angle makes it easier for the cutting to absorb water without fighting gravity - remember, there are no roots.

Place in a nondrafty windowsill with East or South exposure and pray.

Then go back to your poor weary mother Jade plant and write to me - tell me what exactly it is doing.  You don't want to make this mistake again.  Is it dropping leaves?  Are branches shriveling and collapsing?  Are the leaves turning pale green?  rsvp