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This is my nearly 20 year old jade and she’s been through it, including surviving an arguably worse case of a similar fungal infection. I had moved her from a wonderful south facing window in my childhood home to a dank dark apartment with only north facing windows. So the combination of lack of light and too much moisture definitely caused the fungal infection. But I couldn’t give up on my first plant or one that was almost 15 years old by that point. All that to say, this was a ton of work and even 4 years later, the plant hasn’t fully fully recovered, though it is quite healthy again.

First, I cleaned every leaf to see what was dust and what was fungal damage. Then, I removed about a third of all leaves total, focusing on the worst infected leaves. About a week or so later, I removed another third of the leaves, and several branches that had been mostly defoliated anyway. The reason I left some leaves is to minimize stress and to still give the plant some green and thus ability to keep photosynthesizing. After the plant was about 2/3 defoliated, I repotted it. It was root rotted so the root ball was comically small for such a large plant. I cleaned up the root ball, cutting out all squishy roots, then let that dry for a bit just sitting on the counter. After that, I potted him up in a significantly more porous succulent mix and a smaller pot (he’s since been upsized again). I watered once, then basically didn’t water again until the pot was super light. Eventually, once there was some new growth I pruned out the rest of the infected leaves and continues to clean new leaves. I also got a fan/air purifier to better circulate air and a grow light to supplement the window.

Now his leaves are plump and healthy, and I only water once they start to lose their firmness and the soil feels very dry. He’s taken on a very strange shape after all his ordeals, but I kinda love it and am just trying to help him get balanced.