Hello again everyone, I have completed my repotting and would like to share a couple pictures. Here's a pic of the roots; as you can see the spiraling of the roots had this guy very pot bound (I was shocked to see so few roots overall however): Here's the finished plant: So I removed the plant from it's old pot and got to chopsticking. The dirt removed easily and was definitely very powdery (seemed like pretty much 100% peat moss and very fine). After working all of the old substrate out I washed the roots gently to remove anything trapped. Then I trimmed the roots, and applied a thin coat of rooting hormone to the cut root ends. I mixed a 25/75 orchid mix/ OilDri substrate, put a thin layer of this in the pot, made a little mound of substrate at the center (after finishing I wish I would have made it a bit higher in the center), and then proceeded to add the rest and work it around well. Then I gently submerged the pot in water for 10-15 minutes, then let it drain. As you can see in the final pic I have a weight on the opposite side that the plant is leaning. While it wasn't going to fall on it's own, I decided that since I didn't anchor the plant I'll just keep a bit of weight on this side for a couple weeks until I'm confident new roots have formed to firmly hold the plant. I hadn't originally planned to have the plant tilted, but the combination of that and my pruning has it a bit less balanced than I would like. In the future I would have anchored the roots, but live and learn. :) Thanks again everyone for your help and advice, and I'll report back to this post in a couple of weeks, hopefully with good results and 3 new plants to be trained as actual bonsai from the cuttings!

The original plant of this discussion looks like S. arboricola, often referred to as dwarf. A plant of smaller stature and slower growth. http://garden.org/plants/view/74359/Umbrella-Tree-Schefflera-arboricola/ The bigger one is S. actinophylla, a much bigger plant that needs more sun. My house isn't big enough to get involved with one of those. http://garden.org/plants/view/74357/Umbrella-Tree-Schefflera-actinophylla/

oh! it's not much better ;(..except for 2nd pic where i can see lower portion of the trunk with 2 baby-branches and the thick branch shooting right. see, two 'canopies' overlay on pics and it's impossible to say which is which and how the branches are growing and where leaves belong. let's take it one at a time then + some questions and even drawings? i isolated a part of the pic and outlined the trunks - what i see of them. the trunk with 2 baby branches in fornt is easier- let's examine it first. there is a dead stub at the top? - trim that flat. then we need to trim that trunk leaning right to 2-3 good strong leaves - which i can't see, so can't draw where to cut. how many leaves are on that branch, how long is it? are there any more branchings on it? you see that top red single line going off it? - i can't figure out what's there. is that branching or leaf stem? or does it belong to the 2nd trunk behind it? or it's just bending of the trunk? ....you see why i am having problems :))) now the 2nd trunk behind it: i see a good branch there. i put dotted lines to indicate that it's behind, not visible. is it a straight branch with sev leaves? how long is it? it looks good to me, leave it. how does the main trunk continue after that? can't see at all. same q: does it branch more? how many leaves on it? how long is it from the 1st outlined branch? same applies: if it does not branch, we need to trim that trunk to 2-3 good strong leaves - which i can't see, so can't draw where to cut. actually, it would be much faster if you could make a little drawing of branching trunks with little leaf-petiole-stubs in diff color from sev sides: front, side, top. make it with a diff color for each of the 2 trunks, and 3rd color for leaf-petioles. or make sep drawings - 1 trunk at a time - but then we won't see how branches cross.. sorry, but without this kind of info it's impossible to cut well. the general guideline you prolly know anyway, since you prune calamondins. but if you want specifics, you need to give us good data.

Without photos it’s hard to say. Please post some photos of the plant and we can better assist.