There is lots of variability in leaf morphology with "Jade plants". By the way, let's try to be a little more scientific and call them by the real name, Crassula portulacea I think is the current name, but C argentea and C ovata are perfectly acceptable synonyms. Anyway, were the leaves ever different? Maybe they're not supposed to be plump. Crassula arborescens ssp undulatifolia looks similar, with flattened but pointier leaves. This group of plants are in active growth when days are warm and sunny, with cool evenings. They can be pruned anytime during these conditions, which for most of us is spring and fall. Where to cut is a matter of taste and how you want your plant to look. Right above a node is safe. Too close and you may damage any meristematic tissue. Leave a little extra, it can always be trimmed back later. I believe pruning at the same time as repotting is safe, it will reduce the plants water needs during the initial stress of root-shock. Overall, Crassulas are very tough plants and you can probably ignore most of my advice and the results will be good anyway. The only definite thing is not to do anything when they are dormant at the height of summer heat and in the depths of the winter doldrums.

Depends whether you want a big plant which looks like a shrub or smaller, fresher, new plants. You could do both. Cut back the old plant and use the pieces to take cuttings. If you get a cold winter the old plant might not live and that way you would have 'insurance'. I'd also consult any locals who have geraniums you admire.

hi -- if you're in a new yard, you'll probably have a better idea in the spring of what method works best for the conditions you have. personally, by late fall i've pretty much lost the motivation to do much yard work. -- the messy look of the dead/dying leaves doesn't bother me, so i don't do a thing to my hostas and let the leaves turn to compost on their own. i gather up what ever is left of the old leaves in the spring when i have more enthusiasm and when the new growth is emerging. in contrast though, my mother always does a major fall clean-up. in her zone (5) and her yard conditions (shadier and wetter than mine), if she doesn't get the dead leaves up before winter, her garden becomes not only the wet slimy mess that you describe, but, as a result, also a MAJOR slug party. the only way for her to stay ahead of the slug invasion is to clean the beds out in the fall. lucky for me, i don't have a severe slug problem, so i don't have those worries. in general, if leaves are still green, they're still producing food, and so best to leave them alone til they turn.

@gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) Okay, but I did do a brief search in Google Scholar, which gives a much less clear indication that top pruning will not affect survival. I will also say that Dr Scott's article contains no citations, and having interacted with her Facebook group, you quickly realize they are extremely anti-scientific in most of their discussion. God forbid you actually show them scientific evidence. What really matters in that group is that you repeat the words they tell you to speak, like a mindless robot. These are just two random studies: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15592324.2019.1621246 https://www.auburn.edu/academic/forestry_wildlife/nurserycoop/PDF%20files/effects%20of%20top-pruning%20on%20survival.pdf In the first study: "Repetitive pruning increased absolute root dry weight 43% to 61% and root:shoot ratio 55% to 56% above that of control plants that were not pruned. One year after out-planting, the pruned plants were greater in shoot dry weight and plant height than the control plants. More importantly, control plants exhibited 70% to 80% mortality, but the pruned plants exhibited 100% survival." Okay, that was for one specific species. And it is about pruning while the plant is growing, not pruning as a rescue method, but it does hint at the idea that reducing the burden of leaves on a transplant may be helpful. The second study: "Published studies suggest that top-pruning can increase overall survival of loblolly pine and longleaf pine by 7 and 13 percentage points, respectively. Pruning various hardwood species (mainly after lifting) increased average survival by 5 percentage points. Benefits of top-pruning appear greater when seedlings experience stress after planting and when non-pruned seedlings have low root weight ratios (root dry weight/total seedling dry weight). On some droughty sites, a seedling with a 0.3 root weight ratio might have a 26 percentage point higher chance of survival than a seedling with a 0.2 root weight ratio." Again, that is for a different genera of plants, but the results do suggest top pruning enhanced survival and they say explicitly that the benefits are greatest when the plants experience stress after planting, which is my case. We might run a scientific study on my exact plant and do the pruning after the stress of a transplant develops. That study might end up showing I kill the plant more often by top pruning it. But a quick search of Google Scholar would show anyone that my idea is not being pulled out of thin air, and there is a non-zero chance that my idea might improve plant survival.