Andy, I'm no jade plant expert, but I do have several Jade plants in my collection of plants, and have been growing them for several years. I'll offer a few observations for what they are worth. First is a question. Did you just recently plant this plant? Or was it replanted a while back? I'm thinking if you repotted this plant recently, you did a masterful job of it. Jade is so brittle that I find it difficult to pot a plant much smaller than this without having pieces of it spread all over the yard, and the main part of the plant looking like it got too near a major explosion when the potting job is over.
I find Jade to be one of those plants that likes to follow the sun. When you set it in place, the new growth tends to lean toward the sun. If you later rotate the plant so it Is growing away from the sun, soon it will reorient itself and be pointing to the sun again. The new growths tend to be very flexible, and after a bit of this they will begin to collapse and you will have a jumbled mess, as in your photo. I have seen growers stake the plants, and some even wrap heavy wire around the limbs so they can train them to grow in directions other than what the plant desires. I have seen them trained to grow as full leafed rounded bushes, all the way to rather stately trees. All are very attractive, in my opinion, but more work than I have time for. I usually settle for slightly tallish trees, and then I either give them away, or sell them. Oh, by the way, use heavy pots. They tend to get top heavy very fast, and around here (SC) squirrels and birds love to play around them.
I would suggest you sit down with a pair of shears and study this plant long and hard before taking it apart and reshaping it to the way you want it to grow, and set it in a spot where you won't have to move it often. Give it strong light, little water and almost no fertilizer. Make it grow slow and hard (less brittle that way). Every stem and leaf you take off of it is a potential new plant in a short time, so pot them up and plan to have a yard sale in the near future.
Hope this helps. Bill
