How To Prune a Schefflera

[vdeschamps]

Good morning,

This is my second post on the forum (my first one was in regards to a Serissa that I killed because of overwatering).

My first bonsai is a schefflera (Hawaiian Umbrella Tree). I've had it since January of 2011, I keep it indoor under a growing light half of the time. I water it with Jack's 20-20-20 plant food. The tree is in good health. So far I've been doing minor pruning mostly because I want the tree to grow bigger.

Nonetheless, I've always been very confused on how to prune that tree because each leaf looks like a branch composed of several leaves. With patience and trials, I've realized that, once a new branch starts growing, I simply have to cut off all shoots and small leaves growing on its side to make the branch grow longer and straight.

Now, I would be grateful if you could advise me on how to make the tree grow thicker, and how to generally prune that tree.

Below are two pictures of my tree:

 

[Bonsai Nut]

In my personal opinion, schefflera is very difficult material to use for bonsai because of the compound leaf structure and difficulty in reducing leaf size. I have a number of them outside my house in my landscape and if I trim them hard at the end of winter I will get a lot of back-budding with smaller leaves. But you have to watch that you don't let any shoot grow too long or the leaves will increase in size accordingly.

At least in my landscape trees, I can cut them back HARD in the late winter and they will bud back strongly on old wood. But I'm not sure how an indoor tree would respond to the same abuse. It isn't really a tree, per se, but a shrub with a woody stem, so the wood is very soft and pithy. On occasion I will cut back hard and lose a major trunk or stem, and the wood will rot back to the main trunk in a year or two - while the tree will grow in a different direction via a new trunk. In my personal opinion, if you want more girth and taper, your best bet is to let it grow wild, and then cut it back hard.

I am hoping someone with more experience in tropicals will speak up. I see a lot of schefflera in Hawaii...

 

[Tona]

I have three big sheff's that I got from someones yard. I am basically just trimming them as umbrella styled trees. There is a great site about sheffelera bonsai at:

http://www.fukubonsai.com

Good luck,
Tona

 

[Gaitano]

David Fukumoto's sumo method for schefflera

I have quite a few schefflera that I have been working with over several years. I experimented with a Home Depot schefflera using Fukumoto's Sumo technique and got great results. The basic idea is short and stout. This will help to produce short, heavy trunks. I cut back the single stalk trunk back to almost an inch, leaving no foliage. It took guts and faith, but sprouts soon formed. I made the cut in Feb. It was outside since April and now there are three branchings from the cut. I will cut one of them back now to force more trunk budding and branches. I attached pics (I hope), first is in Feb after the cut, second is in April with new budding before I brought it outside. The third is last week after I brought it back inside.



After the successful budding on the Home Depot plant, I applied the technique to a Fukumoto variegated root over rock schefflera from their Maui store. The plant had a main trunk and one branch off the trunk near the base. I cut the main trunk down to about an inch. This was in March. I now have three new branches from the base in addition to the one I left. The one I left will get cut next. I will also attach before and after pics of this one.



The cuttings root very easily and are great for propagation and experimentation.

 

[Gaitano]

This is the growth since the second picture. The next cut will be on the left, tallest branch.

 

[Gaitano]

cutting

This is the top cutting from the first plant. I potted it and placed it in a sealed plastic bag over the summer. This created a humid environment inside the bag and it grew some aerial roots.

 

[vdeschamps]

I have quite a few schefflera that I have been working with over several years. I experimented with a Home Depot schefflera using Fukumoto's Sumo technique and got great results. The basic idea is short and stout. This will help to produce short, heavy trunks. I cut back the single stalk trunk back to almost an inch, leaving no foliage. It took guts and faith, but sprouts soon formed. I made the cut in Feb. It was outside since April and now there are three branchings from the cut. I will cut one of them back now to force more trunk budding and branches. I attached pics (I hope), first is in Feb after the cut, second is in April with new budding before I brought it outside. The third is last week after I brought it back inside.
View attachment 27684
View attachment 27685View attachment 27686

After the successful budding on the Home Depot plant, I applied the technique to a Fukumoto variegated root over rock schefflera from their Maui store. The plant had a main trunk and one branch off the trunk near the base. I cut the main trunk down to about an inch. This was in March. I now have three new branches from the base in addition to the one I left. The one I left will get cut next. I will also attach before and after pics of this one.

View attachment 27687View attachment 27688

The cuttings root very easily and are great for propagation and experimentation.

Thanks a lot for your reply and to the other poster for mentioning the Fuku Bonsai website. Lot's of useful information that gives me hope that I will be able to train my schefflera into something good looking.

I am confused as to how get the training technique specifics. Do I have to pay for this?

 

[Gaitano]

from the main page scroll down towards the bottom under the "training true indoor bonsai" section. The next page, go to the second section titled "three styling-training concepts". this will get you to that section. Its free info.

 

[vdeschamps]

from the main page scroll down towards the bottom under the "training true indoor bonsai" section. The next page, go to the second section titled "three styling-training concepts". this will get you to that section. Its free info.

Thanks for your message. In the section you indicated, under the "Sumo" technique, this is what I could find as far as technique goes:

"We cull out those that have only one or two new growth points to work only with superior genetic stock. Then we allow them to grow vigorously so the trunks thicken and the bases of the branches are strong. When cut back hard again, new growth develops on the older section. If there a lot of time between each drastic pruning, the result is exceptional trunk taper and superior plants."

I am not sure what it means and how I can use this technique on my schefflera. Am I to cut all little branches (that I have been trying to grow and expand) and leaves?

 

[nathanbs]

let it grow

The only way to get trunks thicker on any tree is to let the tree grow, the more leaves the thicker it will get. We call these branches that we just let run out "sacrifice" branches, as the will be cut off later when the trunk or desired branch reaches the thickness we desire. The lower that the "sacrifice" branch comes out of the trunk the better, as this will help produce taper. If you let the top center trunk grow to the sky the trunk will get thicker but it will be very cylindrical and wont exhibit interest or age. If all that your tree has is one upright trunk without any other branching then let it grow for now, chop back once it has gained some substantial stored energy in its roots and then let the new back buds grow out as sacrifices. Repeat this until you've reached your desired shape and thickness

 

[vdeschamps]

The only way to get trunks thicker on any tree is to let the tree grow, the more leaves the thicker it will get. We call these branches that we just let run out "sacrifice" branches, as the will be cut off later when the trunk or desired branch reaches the thickness we desire. The lower that the "sacrifice" branch comes out of the trunk the better, as this will help produce taper. If you let the top center trunk grow to the sky the trunk will get thicker but it will be very cylindrical and wont exhibit interest or age. If all that your tree has is one upright trunk without any other branching then let it grow for now, chop back once it has gained some substantial stored energy in its roots and then let the new back buds grow out as sacrifices. Repeat this until you've reached your desired shape and thickness

Thanks for the reply! Looking at the pictures I attached in my initial post, my tree has several branches and many leaves. I'm trying to understand how to use the Sumo technique on this tree

 

[nathanbs]

let it grow

Those branches are too high on the trunk to help produce the taper required for a sumo so let it grow for now and when its nice and warm and humid where you are, and the tree is healthy, chop it down very low. ITs a little scary like others mentioned but have some faith and with good patience and good weather it will start back budding, these back buds will likely be your sacrifice branches, let them grow to build your little sumo trunk, and your future finished tree branches will be the ones that pop out of the nicely tapered trunk when you chop off your sacrifice branches in the future.

 

[vdeschamps]

Those branches are too high on the trunk to help produce the taper required for a sumo so let it grow for now and when its nice and warm and humid where you are, and the tree is healthy, chop it down very low. ITs a little scary like others mentioned but have some faith and with good patience and good weather it will start back budding, these back buds will likely be your sacrifice branches, let them grow to build your little sumo trunk, and your future finished tree branches will be the ones that pop out of the nicely tapered trunk when you chop off your sacrifice branches in the future.

That is making sense now! Does it matter how the outside weather is since I keep it indoors year-round?

 

[Gaitano]

This is the Fuku-bonsai schefflera I have from a previous post. This is a picture before the cut. As you can see there is a low branch already in place which will act as the sacrifice branch.

I planted the lava rock in soil and when it was strong and healthy I made the cut just above the branch. The midwestern summer helps with the back budding, and three new branches grew from trunk.



I will let these branches grow out, which will help to thicken the trunk. On your plant, if you dont have any low branches yet, just one main trunk, you will have to have faith and cut it back low. This is what I did on the first set of pictures I posted. The plant had one main trunk, with branching about 6" or so up the trunk.

On the Fuku bonsai website where you were looking at Sumo, go back one page to the "training true indoor bonsai portal page" and scroll down to training techniques, #3 pruning... (I forgot about this page) This may help answer your questions a little better. They have decent diagrams of clip and grow.

 

[nathanbs]

Indoor

Indoor can potentially enable you to work on that thing year round. Just be careful of humidity drops due to a heater or extreme colds being near a curtained window

 

[edprocoat]

You could cut that tree in half. Take the top part plant it and it will grow. The bottom trunk will sprout all sorts of new branches which will help to increase the girth. Trunk girth takes time, sealing it in a bag will help with air roots as described above. I notice how your plant is growing towards the light source, more leafs on one side, turn it every few days to get more fuller growth. The more light they get the smaller the leaf size will be. These you can defoliate several times a year and more often when kept indoors.

ed

 

[nathanbs]

large schefflera

here is a pretty large schefflera prior to chopping it way back. I'll see if I can find the photos post chop

 

[mat]

As mentioned above, as long as they're healthy, Schefflera can be pruned back as hard as you'd like. No need to leave any foliage. In fact, the large Scheff's that I have need to be pruned back hard (almost no leaves left) regularly or they lose their shape. I do this multiple times a year with no problem. Your indoor results will probably vary.

Your plant looks pretty young. If it were mine, I'd put it in the brightest spot I could find, feed it, water it when needed and not prune anything for quite a while. Once the trunk fattens a bit, chop it back very hard and start all over. It won't be pretty (for a while), but that's my advice for thickening the trunk and turning this into a decent little bonsai.

 

[nathanbs]

As mentioned above, as long as they're healthy, Schefflera can be pruned back as hard as you'd like. No need to leave any foliage. In fact, the large Scheff's that I have need to be pruned back hard (almost no leaves left) regularly or they lose their shape. I do this multiple times a year with no problem. Your indoor results will probably vary.

Your plant looks pretty young. If it were mine, I'd put it in the brightest spot I could find, feed it, water it when needed and not prune anything for quite a while. Once the trunk fattens a bit, chop it back very hard and start all over. It won't be pretty (for a while), but that's my advice for thickening the trunk and turning this into a decent little bonsai.

i agree 100% with Mat

 

[vdeschamps]

As mentioned above, as long as they're healthy, Schefflera can be pruned back as hard as you'd like. No need to leave any foliage. In fact, the large Scheff's that I have need to be pruned back hard (almost no leaves left) regularly or they lose their shape. I do this multiple times a year with no problem. Your indoor results will probably vary.

Your plant looks pretty young. If it were mine, I'd put it in the brightest spot I could find, feed it, water it when needed and not prune anything for quite a while. Once the trunk fattens a bit, chop it back very hard and start all over. It won't be pretty (for a while), but that's my advice for thickening the trunk and turning this into a decent little bonsai.

Ok then, I will follow your advice and let it grow wild for a while

Thanks all for your help, can't wait to discuss future bonsai-cases!