Spekboom and jade are often confused because both are succulent shrubs with rounded leaves — but they want different care.
Spekboom in short
Spekboom and jade are often confused because both are succulent shrubs with rounded leaves — but they want different care.
How to get it right
- Spekboom (Portulacaria afra) has much smaller leaves on reddish, wiry stems and grows into a dense hedge.
- Jade (Crassula ovata) has thicker, larger leaves on a woody trunk and is far more frost-tender.
- Both demand drainage, but jade needs more protection from cold and is happiest in a pot you can move.
Where most people slip up
- Buying jade thinking it is a frost-hardy spekboom hedge plant.
- Treating spekboom as a windowsill curiosity when it belongs in the ground.
Living and growing plants in the Garden Route
AloeRoots grows and sells spekboom and aloes from Wilderness in the Garden Route. Every plant we send out is grown here, in this climate — the same wet winters and salty wind your garden has to live with.
Get plants or ask a question
Tell us what you are planting — a hedge, a rockery, a pot on a stoep — and we will point you at the right plants and the right size.
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