Hi Guys,

Most of the information I read regarding repotting says that this must be done a the correct time of year which seems to be spring more often than not. My question is as I live in a tropical country, working with tropical trees, where there is no winter/spring/summer/autumn type season, just wet and dry, how do I know when is the best time to repot? For instance, I have a couple of Neem trees I am (attempting) to create bonsai from, when should I be repotting these?

Gerry

Good evening
there must be a time when the trees grow slower, the temperature is constant or it drops at some point!!!

Hi jojo22,

There is a small temperature drop of a couple degrees F in January/Feb, does that mean I should repot after that period?

Hey Gerry!

I don't think there's an absolute truth on that case.

Here on some regions of Brazil there are similar seasons, people on the Northeast generally work on their plants on late autumn, after the heavy rainy period, or on winter (wet season), but you must be carefull on winter with excessive humidity on the substrate.
On spring, can be done, however on the second half of it, it starts to get too hot during the day, so extra care would be necessary, like protect it from direct hot-sun hours and watering.

It would be a good idea to find local Bonsai comunitties, and ask them how they are doing it.

Hi Albas,

I don't think there is much of a Bonsai community here... we are a small island of 60,000 people. I will try to figure this out with trial and error I guess.

Isn't that island on a cluster? Doesn't it have a mainland where the climate is simillar?

I usually hold off on my tropicals and do them last in the year, May or June. They have been suffering inside, usually coming outside about mid March. That gives them a month or two to get healthy again. It seems to me that it is better to abuse the roots when the tree is healthy. Others might disagree, but the trees are all doing well. One is about 23 years old, so it can't be too bad an approach.

Ivan Mann wrote:

I usually hold off on my tropicals and do them last in the year, May or June. They have been suffering inside, usually coming outside about mid March. That gives them a month or two to get healthy again. It seems to me that it is better to abuse the roots when the tree is healthy. Others might disagree, but the trees are all doing well. One is about 23 years old, so it can't be too bad an approach.

Hey Ivann, his doubt is about the climate itself, and not the tropical trees.

On a Ficus for example, it works to repot on Summer here, but my climate is humid subtropical, that means we have defined seasons, but still humid with eventual rains on summer. And of course, at the first weeks doubled attention on watering and positioning.

But on a Tropical or almost Equatorial climate, you don't have a winter, or a much friendly summer... It's wet on winter, and very dry on summer.
March (South Hemisphere) is the rainy month...

Rio de Janeiro for example winter minimum is around 23ºC (not even cold hahahah). Trees behave a little different, so the approach is a little different.

The only info that I found on local forum here, of people who have similar climate to his, said they do it right after that heavy rainy season, or on mid "winter".

However, there's not much info about it, and climates are indeed similar, but I doubt it's identical.

I think so, it's the moment when the plants slow down their growth!!

Albas,

The island are south of Cuba so the closest people I have been trying to follow are in Florida but they get more of a "winter" than we do but I will try to follow their advice.