Stan, jade's not a tropical plant, whereas the other two are.

Yeah, I can't imagine they'd do too well in the humidity down here. Jades can even be difficult to root and keep happy INdoors in Florida (at least in my experience).

In general, most South African succulents do poorly in Florida. Some species will thrive, but on the whole, humidity, high heat, and frequent rain mean there are not giant jades out and about in the average garden. There are large jades, mostly indoors and in botanical gardens. Mostly you come across cacti like Opuntia, cereus, Harrisia, consolea, and hylocereus. You also see a lot of agaves, dyckias, euphorbias, adeniums, and Pachypodiums. All things that can take a lot of heat, rain, and humidity.

I would say it depends on where in SA you're talking about. There are a bunch of different microclimates. Some are summer dry/winter wet and others that are summer wet/winter dry. In Florida you'll be able to grow the SA plants from summer wet areas and in Cali you're better off with plants from winter wet areas. Although I think we have an easier time growing the summer wet than Florida does the summer dry plants because it's just so humid there in the summer.

I thought maybe somebody had one in some protected spot (like palm people do to protect plants from winter cold etc,) from summer rains. The all year warmth sounded like it could make some huge Jades.

I guess the dry sides of Hawaii or the dry Caribbean must make make some unheard of large Jades. I wish somebody from the there would post a pic!

They are all over in So. CA which would be less humid than FL.

I have lost many Jade plants to the summer rain and sun in Sarasota. We had a summer and winter drought this past year so this one survived. Gotta get a bigga pot.

Florida is not paradise for all plants or all people. Maybe if you shelter it from rainfall outside, but the humidity alone in the summer might be an issue for this South African native.