Thanks for your service, Wally!
I can walk you through some of the steps in the repotting process, which is different than potting up. Repotting includes bare-rooting and root pruning, and relieves all stress associated with root congestion. Potting up partially relieves some of the stress from root congestion, but ensures the congestion in the center of the root mass remains as an unseen limitation on your plant's potential growth, vitality, ability to defend itself, and often appearance. Ask if you have questions
First, the best time to repot your scheff would be in June (in the Northern Hemisphere). During the annual growth cycle, a houseplant's level of vitality and stored energy can vary significantly. Most tropical and subtropical plants are best repotted immediately prior to or within 2 weeks either side of when their potential for growth peaks. Since sun intensity and day length peak at the summer solstice (21 Jun), the plant's stored energy reserves will be high and increasing, and its ability to make its own food (photosynthesis) will also be at peak levels. What this means is, all else equal, the plant will recover faster if you time your repotting to coincide approximately with the Summer Solstice or Father's Day than at any other interval of the growth cycle. So, my suggestion would be to wait until then. Your plant doesn't look like it's circling the drain, so it should have no difficulty maintaining until then. It simply makes good growing sense to avoid unnecessarily stressing plants when energy reserves are low (fall through Memorial Day), and taking advantage of that late spring/early summer period where growth is most robust to complete heavy tasks like hard pruning and repotting.
Another important consideration is that, surprisingly, synthesizing defensive chemicals against insects and disease is low on your plant's list of priorities. Plants send energy to its various parts (called energy sinks) in a specific order or prioritization. Energy is first allocated to respiratory function, i.e. to maintenance of living tissues, then, to production of fine roots, followed by flower and seed/fruit production, then primary growth (extension of both roots and shoots), then secondary growth (thickening), and finally, the synthesis of defensive chemicals.
Using your tree as an example, repotting it in late fall winter might require 3 months or more to recover to the degree it might only take 2 weeks to realize in Jun. During that period, the plant will be considerably more vulnerable to insect herbivory and disease pathogens than it would be if the timing was better. So not only will you FEEL like a better care giver, you'll actually BE one.
The tree you'll see was given to me by some people at church who were moving. The idea was, I would work on the tree and give it to someone else in the congregation. I ended up sending it to Boston to a guy who killed his fiance's scheff while she was on holiday.
Starting point, with the plant clearly out of bounds:
Plant back within bounds, ready for the repot. There is a little scheff 'root-over-rock' composition in the image, lower RH corner.
Ready to start:
After removing the bottom 2/3 of the roots:
Bare-rooting and rootwork complete. I did remove the remaining circling roots around the perimeter of the root mass:
Repot completed:
I had an image that showed the prolific back-budding, but I messed it up in a photo app. This is the guy's fiance after the tree and pot was shipped to him/her. Even after shipping the tree that wasn't yet fully established in the pot, it's doing very well:
When you do repot, the change in growth rate and vitality will astound you. Just remember the significant increase in both is not a growth spurt, it is just the tree returning to its ability to grow normally, as it could have been growing all along if not for the stress and limitations associated with root congestion. When potting up (vs repotting) the improvement you'll see will only be a fraction of what it would be had you repotted, and the fact there IS improvement after repotting OR potting up is clear indication of how stressful root congestion can be.
In the temporal, repotting is significantly more stressful than potting up, but it is essential if we are to provide plants with their best opportunity to maximize realization of their genetic potential. Over the long term and all else equal, growth rate and vitality levels of trees regularly repotted will be
very conspicuously superior to plants potted up. Unlike performing a full repot, potting up can be undertaken at any time of year w/o much in the way of concern; however, it's still better to time your potting up session so they occur in summer because of the quicker recovery time. The only time I repot a plant out of season is if I'm quite certain the plant will die before a more appropriate time to repot comes around.
Al
