Cork Bark Jade (Portulacaria Afra) is no longer growing leaves and instead is growing tiny compact brown clusters. What are these things?

[tadow]

My Portulacaria Afra (that im trying to grow into a cascade style bonsai), stopped growing leavess and started pushing out these strange compact brown clusters instead.
Does anyone here have any idea what is happening?
Im wondering if this means that it's time to defoliate it completely?

 

[hemmy]

Search pictures of their flowers. Are yours dried up?

Normally they only flowered me in the ground when it was dry or under drought stress. Small pinkish flowers. These growths look like flowering but with something wrong.

 

[tadow]

Yea that thought crossed my mind. These growths do feel dry (even though i have a history of over watering this plant; notice the edema on some of the leaves). These cluster growths were never pink or flowerlike. They grew in like that.

I wonder if i can defoliate these growths (along with the leaves) to basically reset the growth cycle and get some regrowth ramification started; without ruining the plant?

 

[tadow]

I apologize for the bump... just looking for answers. Hoping someone can give some more insights.

 

[tad0w]

OK sooo... my original login no longer working so had to make a new ID.
Anyways, i just wanted to follow up on this thread just in case someone else experiences a similar issue.

Basically with regards to this (lack of new growth and strange brown-clusters-of-growth issue), I just left my cork bark jade alone and watered sparingly. All of a sudden, extremely ramified leaves started to shoot out of the brown clusters.

So long story short:
1) brown clusters = ugly flower growths
2) plant was just dormant = no new growth
3) leaves pushing out of the ugly flower growths are extremely ramified/tiny

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

It is great news your portulacaria is still alive. I personally have never seen one flower, but I live in the "great frozen north", where Portulacaria has to be an indoor for winter houseplant. We probably don't get enough sun year round to get blooming.

Hopefully the system won't be a problem. Overall BNut is a very stable platform as far as most forums go. It is very rarely down. Fill out the rest of your profile. A location, just vaguely what city you are in will greatly help people tailor comments to your growing conditions. So much of bonsai growing is done outdoors, it is important to understand your outdoor climate. And if you grow 100% of the year indoors, you could use that as your location, just "100% indoors" and then advice would be tailored to indoor growing.

Actually we are an international forum, so if the city does not make your home country obvious, add the home country.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[queenofsheba52]

Hi @tadow , glad you found this awesome bonsai site!

I don't have portulacaria, but I have regular large leaf jade plants. They summer outside and usually treat me to flowers after I bring them inside for winter. I am happy to see that your P.afra is doing well! Sometimes it is really hard to avoid the temptation to over-water.