Neem is a fast-growing, mostly evergreen tree from the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, grown widely in tropical and subtropical areas for its oil, shade and insect-repelling leaves. It is a tree rather than a houseplant, so it needs a hot, sunny site with room to spread.
Family
Meliaceae (Meli family)
Grows as
Tree
Light
Full sun
Water
Water deeply while young, then rely mostly on rainfall; established trees tolerate drought well.
Soil
Well-drained, sandy to loamy soil; tolerates poor and alkaline soils.
Temperature
20–35 °C; protect young trees below 5 °C
How easy
Easy
Safety
Not known to be toxic
Native range
Assam to Indo-China
Climate
wet tropical
About
Azadirachta indica, commonly known as neem, margosa, nimtree or Indian lilac, is a tree in the Mahogany family Meliaceae. It is one of the two species in the genus Azadirachta. It is native to the Indian subcontinent and to parts of Southeast Asia, but is naturalized and grown around the world in tropical and subtropical areas. Its fruits and seeds are the source of neem oil. Nim is a Hindustani noun derived from Sanskrit nimba (निंब).
Where it grows
Azadirachta indica is considered to be native to the Assam region, Pakistan and Bangladesh in the Indian subcontinent and to Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam in Indochina. It has been widely introduced elsewhere in tropical and subtropical regions, from South America, West Africa to Indonesia.
Uses
Neem leaves are dried in India and placed in cupboards to prevent insects from eating clothes, and in containers in which rice and wheat are stored. The flowers are also used in many Indian festivals like Ugadi. See below: #Association with Hindu festivals in India.
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Azadirachta indica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.