When to repot my 2 baby tamarind trees?

Question

I live in London UK and have two small tamarind trees about 12 inches high which were sprouted from a pod we ate years back and kept the seeds, rediscovering them at the start of lockdown #1!

So they were born in April 2020 (they are round 8 months old), and they are doing very well, all summer and autumn they just grew and grew it was hard to keep up. I have never really taken care of plants like this before so am pretty new to this but I love them deeply and one day I want to hang a hammock between them.

As the winter came they stopped growing and on one of them the last 'feather' of leaves to have grown fell off — apart from this they do seem very healthy plants.

But I wanted to repot them as I think they are outgrowing the pots they are in and thought maybe this is why they are not growing (?)

I have two big terracotta pots waiting next to them. The smaller pots they are currently in are also terracotta.

My question is — WHEN?

The lady at the pot shop (who didn't know tamarind plants but advised me based on what I told her about them) said that I should not do it now and wait until Spring/April. I really don't want to stunt or kill them over winter.

Can anyone advise me further on this?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Tamarindus indica are slow growing trees which eventually reach 25-30 metres in height. They are not hardy in the UK, so are grown in pots and moved to shelter over winter, like in a cold greenhouse - I'm afraid this means you will never be able to grow them large enough to hang anything between them because being in a pot restricts their growth significantly. As you are in London, the trees will likely be fine outdoors in winter UNLESS we have very cold spells, so you could leave them out and just move them in and out of shelter according to the weather. If you are going to keep them under cover in a cold greenhouse, definitely repot now, but otherwise, so long as roots are not hanging out the bottom of their existing pots, repotting can wait till March. If roots are noticeable at the base of the pots, or the topgrowth of the tree is much, much bigger than the pots they are currently in to the point of the pot appearing ridiculously small, then you will need to do it now. Some info in this link re keeping tamarind in pots, Tamarind.