Here's a side view of the same plant.

Ah, the joy of whacking....
Your pot has several cuttings, so when you re-pot, you could remove one of those and pot it by itself to get that single-trunk look. I, personally, wouldn't hesitate to chop even harder. Wherever you prune, you will likely get branching, and those leaves will be heavier at the end of these trunks, which will cause those thin trunks to bend. And then you just end up cutting away all that growth in order to work the foliage down lower for a sturdier canopy.

Josh

Thanks, Josh. I don't actually insist on having that single-trunk look and am no longer averse to merciless whacking -- I'm just unsure how to prune these many trunks so that the result will be something that looks full and pretty. Or at least interesting.

When I'm home again, I'll make some suggestions on your pic.

Josh

Thanks, Josh! I appreciate your help.

These are just suggestions, based on a small pic where I can't actually see all the branches or their directions. But I wouldn't hesitate to bring the branches in this far if the plants were my own.

Josh

Edit: forgot the pic!

This post was edited by greenman28 on Tue, Jul 8, 14 at 13:56

This is so helpful, Josh! I'm prepared to be ruthless, and I will follow your suggestions. I bought some cactus/succulent mix today and some perlite as well. Only question remaining is about the new pot. I'm expecting to find that the plant is way root bound and that I'll need a larger pot. Since jades like to be somewhat root bound, how do I ensure its happiness in an initially roomier container?

Well, I wouldn't recommend a hard-pruning *and* a re-potting at the same time. Jades are tough, yes, but that will increase the stress. Tough call. If it were mine, I'd probably do the pruning now, and then re-pot in a month or so....or whenever new growth begins to sprout.

As for the container size....I think the container size that the Jades are currently in will be fine. I suppose the pot could be full of roots; or you might find fewer roots than expected. Either way, I would just rinse off the old mix and put the Jades back into the same pot (or the same sized pot) with fresh mix. Add lots of Perlite to the mix.

Josh

Oh, OK -- I hadn't picked up that it wasn't a good idea to whack and repot simultaneously. I was thinking repotting might be needed promptly because of the weird diseased appearance of some of the leaves. Maybe I should repot now and whack later�

You could re-pot now....I was just thinking that those long ungainly branches will be floppy and more difficult to support / handle when re-potting, but if you prop the trunks up with some stones, et cetera, it should be fine. It's totally up to you :-)

Josh

Yeah, that's why originally I was thinking of whacking before I repotted, but then I was assuming I could repot right away. I guess I'll go ahead and cut first and hope the soil it's in isn't too meager for it. Thanks again, Josh!

Jades are pretty tough.A few years ago, these "sticks" were sent to me from California. I put them in a gritty mix, and put them outside.
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This is what they looked like a few months later.
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I think this pic is from last fall.
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Seriously, Jades have a very strong will to live.

Rob