Hello Bonsai Friends,

I understand the best time to repot and do root work on bonsai is in late spring, early summer however, my Schefflera Mini arboricola is terribly root bound and still in it's nursery pot. I purchased it about 3 months ago and it looks healthy however, the growth has been quite slow and the roots are wrapping around the inside of the pot horizontally. I'm concered about leaving it like this for another eight months or more.

Considering it is an *indoor plant* living in a temperate climate, can I do root work on it now in the Autumn?

Yes you can. The best time is mainly for outdoor plants, as you are limited there by temperature. Most indoor bonsai are formed from tropical species, most of which have no distinct growing and resting period. (There are some when keeping them without special equipment in your living room, but less so than for outdoor species).

In general when you want to do [root]work on your tree you need to ask yourself these questions:
- Is my tree healthy
- Is my tree not recovering from e.g. trimming & wiring (although I choose to do trimming & root work at once with healty trees)
- Wil the plant have sufficient time to recover before the weather turns challenging (e.g. hot summer, cold winter)

In your case, the plant is not recovering, is healthy and is indoors -> you can provide proper circumstances for recovery: Go ahead!

Yes, you can do it if you want, mostly the root work is done in a specific time because of the (growing) seasons, but with an indoor plant you can vary more with the times you do it

Thank you Jelle and Youri.
Those are excellent questions to ask myself. I'm off to do root work...photos soon to follow!

kinda missed this one but you'll be fine...i tend to leave my indoor tree work for the dead of winter cuz by then im going bonsai stir crazy

Hi Keith,

Thank you for the reassurance. Because I only began studying Bonsai this past July and, of course, didn't have a clue what I was doing , I 'have' been going bonsai stir crazy . It's only now that I'm really beginning to get into the action of things.

I'm curious...after working on your indoor bonsais in winter, are you able to still enjoy the *Spring and early Summer madness work* with them as you would if you hadn't worked on them since the previous Summer?

hey leslie,
do you mean other then the deciduous and conifer madness why yes
seeing that sub and full tropicals don't have a dormancy they basically go trough active growing and resting periods.control is gained with ajustments in light times and fertilizer...more frequent feedings and longer light to dark intervals bring on heavier growth, when this happens its time to prune and defoliate.
for the inside months i force alot of growth. in the summer i do more of a maintance growth control. its more of a "let nature take it's course" schedual
right now i am running a 16hr on 8 hr off light schedual to acclimate them to indoor conditions .late oct. early nov. i will begin a heavy fertalizer regimine ( 20,20,20 water soluble fert every watering) by mid dec. the trees will be growing like crazy.this is when i will do pruning and such then return to the maintainance fert of once a month w/ 7,7,7. till spring and up the light up to 20 on 4 off till new leaves sprout ...
it's still alots of staring and planning and waiting and staring and waiting and planning with a little bit of pruning and wireing it still helps with the 5 months of wondering if my outside trees have all died or not