SU2
Omono
So I just took a break to come home with a mini hedge-row (3) of crappily-developed schefflera's, a straggly mass of thin branches reaching maybe 2.5' from the ground, anyways I basically just pulled them out of the ground (minimal hand-sawing with a drywall knife to avoid tearing any thicker roots 'the wrong way' when pulling), hosed them til they were soaking & mostly bare-rooted and left them in a big (covered) tub in my yard.....Can I trunk-chop these guys to lil 1-4" trunks? Are forest-plantings a dumb idea with this specie?(am at a loss for what to do besides a generic "chop & see what it gives ya") And last but not least, how aggressive can I be on those roots? I'm OK with anything from simply potting-up / sticking in-ground the whole bunch as-is, to chopping 95% of the upper&lower portions off and putting them in shallow pots, just unsure what the usual approach is in a semi-tropic 9a area when starting-out with larger schefflera stock! (For context of 'grow environment', my ficus grow so many aerials I've begun removing some for aesthetic reasons...)
Thanks a ton for any&all advice on these guys!!! Never had a dwarfed schefflera (don't feel right calling it 'bonsai' for some reason lol, even though I think I'd argue it is) so am totally on-a-limb here and don't have the time to watch hours of youtubes to get acquainted (am even unsure how bad the 'wet bucket' temp-storage right now is for them!) Again thanks for any thoughts, my first 'creative instinct' was to get (not now) a scoria slab to carve-out and make as the slab for a forest planting of these guys, I feel like I've seen various foliage-types on these things and think this *is* the smaller type so perhaps it would take to reduction for a lil forest, would obviously be a silly specimen in the end *but* I could still see it looking really cool, the vivid yellow&green against a red scoria slab!
[edited-to-add: I should mention that I'm treating/want to treat this as "spring-time" even though it's not, the reality is it is a spring-time environment here and, if/when we get any last cold spurts, my overwintering setup is more than redundant so zero concerns/weight should be given to supple new shoots in early March]
Thanks a ton for any&all advice on these guys!!! Never had a dwarfed schefflera (don't feel right calling it 'bonsai' for some reason lol, even though I think I'd argue it is) so am totally on-a-limb here and don't have the time to watch hours of youtubes to get acquainted (am even unsure how bad the 'wet bucket' temp-storage right now is for them!) Again thanks for any thoughts, my first 'creative instinct' was to get (not now) a scoria slab to carve-out and make as the slab for a forest planting of these guys, I feel like I've seen various foliage-types on these things and think this *is* the smaller type so perhaps it would take to reduction for a lil forest, would obviously be a silly specimen in the end *but* I could still see it looking really cool, the vivid yellow&green against a red scoria slab!
[edited-to-add: I should mention that I'm treating/want to treat this as "spring-time" even though it's not, the reality is it is a spring-time environment here and, if/when we get any last cold spurts, my overwintering setup is more than redundant so zero concerns/weight should be given to supple new shoots in early March]