Hello - new here so I apologize if I break any rules!
I have a scheflerra that has gone quite wild and I would like to train back to a tree look. It has 3 main trunks, and I would like to braid them into 1 trunk to have a mini tree look. The main trunk was about 9ft tall and I cut it back to about 6.5 ft. The 2 smaller trunks have about 70* bends in them as well, and I'm guessing I would have to straighten these out to be able to braid them?
Any idea where to start with this?
Thanks!
To braid the trunks you need to start when they are very young and still flexible. Braid them as they grow.
A Scheflera 9' tall sounds like the trunks will be too firm to give and take to make a nice braid.
Perhaps a different idea? Are all three trunks more or less in one plane? How about training it to spread out on a trellis and cover a wall?
My Elf is doing something similar to yours, but it is leaning because it is trying to grow out from under an ornamental banana. The trunk is very strong, I would not be able to braid it, though I could stand it up straighter (if the banana was not there).
I agree with Diana about your arb (your plant technically is a dwarf scheflerra, called an arboricola) being too big to braid at this point. The good news is that for it to be so big, you must have the culture together pretty well. So it's all fun stuff from here
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The first thing I would do is to make it stand up straight. Unless you prune it back severely, you're going to have to stake it. In your picture, it looks like you have a heavy stake, like a broom handle or 1" X 1" piece of wood - that should work nicely. You might want to sharpen the end so it goes into the soil easier. And if you paint it black or brown or dark green, it will look nicer. Put it right next to the plant trunk, so you can tie the trunk when you're through shaping, and push it all the way down. You may have to wiggle it around if you hit a big root, but it should go in. You can tie it with pieces of horticultural wire (like twisty tie only on a long roll), floral tape, cut up panty hose, whatever.
You can tie the smaller trunks to the bigger one, or if they're small enough you can sort of wrap them around it.
The next thing is to think about what shape you want; and then how big do you want it to be.
A standard tree shape requires a trunk and canopy of leaves; the other choice is a spire, or column-shape, where the leaves go all the way down to the pot.
Regarding height, for a column, just cut off at, or slightly below, the height you want; you can easily keep it pruned to that appearance.
The tree shape is more complicated. Think about how your plant grew when you cut it back - did it send out new shoots from the cut place? Alot of them, or just 1 or 2? That's what it's going to do when you cut the main trunk at the spot you have determined, which will be a foot or more below where you want the canopy to be...then all you need is to wait for the shoots to grow (year or 2?),
then prune those to encourage more branching, etc etc. 10 years or so you could have a gorgeous tree. This is all to say that you can do it, it will just take a long time.
To create your trunk, just remove the leaves where you want the trunk to be. I think if I were doing it, I would cut the top and get the canopy going, then remove the lower leaves in a few years when I had a respectable top grown.
Have fun. Let us know how it goes.
