Lots of info here for you
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1477099/schefflera-pruning-advice?n=29

A picture would help a lot. You can literally chop it back to just above ground level and it will back-bud. If you want full plants, you have to take control and alter the plant's natural growth habit.

These 2 pics are the same plant. There is an interesting story behind this plant - how it started in my driveway in MI and ended up with the lady in the second picture below, in NY or Boston, I forget which.

Pinching/pruning is how you get your plants to this stage:

Thanks, Christine. That is an excellent discussion on pruning Scheffleras. I got all the info I need, and I already chopped mine off.

Your plant is lovely, Al. I'm a little too anal about my plants to ever let something get like that first photo you posted. Yikes!

Here's a photo of mine that I took this morning. I just chopped it in half after reading the thread that Christine posted (which happens to include your comments and your Schefflera).

Your photo of your bushy Schefflera is apparently a year or more old, so undoubtedly you discovered and fixed it a long time ago, but do I see spider mite damage on yours, Al? Looks like they had a little fun with sort of the upper, right quadrant, from about 12:00 to 3:00. My little Schefflera had a few around October. You can see a couple brown edges on leaflets (I left the damaged tissue to see how old spider mite damage would look).

in the other thread, you told a poster to completely defoliate his/her Schefflera every year. Can you clarify that? Did you really mean he/she should remove every leaf from an adult plant every year? That makes me shiver. How long does it take a Schefflera to look good again after it's been defoliated? How much of the year does such a plant actually look nice? How do you remove the leaves; are you treating each petiole from the stem, or just pinching them off?

Don't bother telling me to re-pot mine. I know. It's on the re-pot list, along with about 30 other plants! Aaaargh! :-)

Oh, that wasn't MY plant. I'm sort of the plant Dr at church, and the plant in the photo above was brought to me as something of a challenge. I was going to fix it and give it to one of the members, but a guy was searching GW in desperation mode because his fiancé was away and he had killed her scheff via over-watering. He wanted to know how to revive it. After we discussed the idea there is only 1 degree of 'dead', it was decided that the plant he had seen in the post that had just documented the repot would be sent as replacement for his GF's casualty and to ensure his continued viability. A week or so after she rec'd it, she sent the pic and a thank-you, and everyone lived happily ever after - at least I hope they did. I never heard anything more from them.

I don't think you're seeing mite damage. There are about a dozen leaflets on 3-4 compound leaves that show some mid-leaf chlorosis. I'm not sure if that's nutritional or possibly light-related. Those plants were at the office (at my brother's home now) and our windows are tinted blue and only allow about 1/3 of the visible spectrum to pass through the glass. The plants don't look like it because they are so full, but they are very leggy. It's not a plant-friendly environ.

When I move my scheff bonsai outdoors, I prune and remove every leaf, as in this root-over-rock planting.

If the plant is healthy when you do it, it starts to back-bud immediately. Within 2 weeks, small leaves will have appeared in pristine condition and perfectly acclimated to the current light conditions. It's a win/win situation. You can't do that to plants circling the drain, but you can do it to any reasonably healthy scheff, and most ficus as well, depending on species and where you live - the further south allowing more latitude (no pun intended). ;-)

You can see I cut through the petiole with pr of scissors, about 3/4' from its attachment point. The stub falls off w/o help in a couple of weeks. Don't pull leaves off as it damages latent buds in leaf axils.

I'd cut your plant back to about 1/3 of it's existing ht, but when it comes to your plants, I'm naturally fearless. Seriously though, that's what I would do and all would be well. We're just coming into the time where plants best tolerate significant work on the top or the roots. Mid-Jun to mid-Jul is about the best time.

Al

I think Bonsai growers must learn to be fearless (with their own plants) or they couldn't be Bonsai growers.

I went ahead and chopped off some more of my little plant. I stuck both tops in water, and if I'm lucky, I'll have three stems soon. I might try stripping one of those of its leaves when I have three healthy stems, but for now, I'll see how the one comes back. Thanks for the tips.

Here's the trunk on one of mine, about 3 yrs after being beheaded.

From the top:

How big was yours before you whacked it, Tiffany? And are those pine seedlings and Kalanchoe growing with it? Your house must be like the horticulturist's version of The Old Curiosity Shop: curious things growing in every nook and cranny. :-D

This discussion made me decide it was time to chop another piece off of mine & add it to this palm tree.