I like the look to your tree. A few spring cutbacks should create some good ramification in a few years. I have a scheff with a similar look, though not so well developed. It is a fusion of three cuttings from a larger one, so you'll see a green tape around the trunk.

What are your thoughts on the exposed roots? I've done that with a couple of scheffs, but they always end up looking like a spider's legs. Creeps me out. I am thinking of cutting off one root from mine at each repot until that resemblance is gone. Or maybe I should go the other way and progressively expose more root until they look too long to be spider's legs...

ez

Wow - that is a gorgeous scheff! I have some seeds that I'm waiting to germinate (apparently it takes 40 days!?) and my plan was to bind them and similarly allow inosculation to fuse the trunks. The seeds have not yet sprouted and I'm losing interested - its not fun watering a pot of dirt when you have a nice plant already, lol!

As far as the form, I looked for a scheff that had a central trunk and I think mine does (your's certainly does), while most seem to more-so fall into the clump (banyan?) style, like a dense forest. I always like some form of nebari, but I see what your saying about the neagari (exposed roots) looking spider-like. At first, I felt it drew away from the central trunk, and made it more of the clump/banyan style plant. Looking at my scheff, a spider didn't come to mind, but I do think the neagari provides a sense of movement - for me, in an almost anthropomorphic way: the image that comes to my mind is a person walking through a swamp or bog and leaning to the side in order to pull his/her feet out of the mud. A sort of struggle to move forward and survive that I think are central to the nature of designing a small tree to look like an older, weather-torn specimen. Considering that, I actually intentionally expand the roots: when potting the plan, I washed off nearly an inch of dirt that was over the root system. Maybe not ideal if you are going for a small bonsai (shohin or something), but I'd rather give it some size personally.

I'd love to know your thoughts about ramification for a scheff. I had 3 golden cappelas that I sold / gave away recently and my experience with schefferlas is that sometimes you cut the terminal and another one grows back with no ramification. Other times, the terminal does split and even a shoot/bud comes out lower on the plant, but I haven't found consistency in this.

I did a lot of reading on bonsaihunk.com and learned that since schefflera will often only send one shoot out to replace a cut branch, a better way to ramify is to wait until a time of strong growth, then completely defoliate the tree while leaving the last one inch of each leaf stem, and cut off all growth ends. (This is a great time to cut branches for shaping the canopy). The stem bases are left behind because the tree can absorb that energy. Reduce sun exposure and water, and in several weeks there will be many new branches forming. It works really well.

ez

I've read his site and seen his posts on some other forums. I was wondering what defoliation does for ramification beyond what cutting the terminal does. I guess more important than knowing why it works, it's good to hear it works for you too! You say now is a good time of year? Hmm... I might have to give it a shot, this plant could really use some branching I think, right? By leaving the last inch, you mean cut the new growth back so there is only one inch left of new, green, growth after the lignified/bark covered older growth?

Yeah - thats a great example. I'm not sure if I should do anything drastic like that since my schefflera is newly repotted and not used to this environment yet. All the terminals are chopped, but not that aggressively.

Hey! That's MY root-over-rock tree! ;-)

Al

Well, you just never know where a compliment is gonna come from!

Yep - that is a great example of a Scheff! I switched mine, along with many other plants in my house, to Al's Gritty Mix. The scheff and my compact jade were growing roots through the bottom of the pots within 3-weeks of switching to the gritty mix!