I doubt the tree will heal where it split. At least not for a long time. Rather than just letting it grow until something catastrophic happens, maybe you should think about some goals you might have for this tree. You might want to bring this over to the container gardening forum, them people grow anything imaginable in pots and talk about things like root pruning. Good Luck! :-)

I found this link for you to read, Al Tapla explains it very well. I think you'll find your answers here...

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/1468337/only-1-2-of-a-schefflera-remaining

Michelle,

My neighbor has a money tree in almost the same situation as yours. As we live in Florida, he keeps it outside most of the year. However, during a hard freeze last winter, he lost the main trunk. It is sending up suckers like crazy from the base of the trunk.

Here are some photos:

If it were mine, I would remove the main trunk. It is mid-August and if nothing has sprouted from the top by now, it never will. That part is dead and should be removed. It will still be a really nice plant.

Carol in Jacksonville, Florida

Hi Carol, thanks so much for your input. Wow, your neighbor's tree made a nice recovery! The base of his tree's trunk is so big... mine is only about 1.5-inch in diameter so I wonder if mine would sprout much from the base?

I live in Seattle, WA so although our days have been nice and warm (even hot on some days!) this summer, the nights are much cooler. I wasn't sure if this would be good for the plant... Maybe I should be moving it outside during daylight hours and back inside at night?

I actually did cut the tree back to right above the break and the new growth pictured in my initial photo. Unfortunately the new growth fell off when I did the cutting, so I cut the tree back down even further, to about 5-ft tall. I replanted the growth and the additional trunk cutting to see if anything would grow from it. Almost 3 weeks later, I finally spotted 2 tiny green buds growing about an inch from the top of my trimmed down tree, and 1 green bud sprouting from the additional trunk cutting I re-planted. The growth that fell off when I did the first cut and re-planted looks exactly the same... I'm wondering if it's busy getting rooted and that's why the leaves haven't changed, since it's energy is busy growing under the soil rather than above.

Just for the heck of it, I've attached 4 photos I took today for reference: (1) growth that I re-planted after it fell off from the main tree, (2) first bud I've noticed on the main tree, (3) second bud on the main tree, and (4) budding on the additional trunk cutting I re-planted.

Hopefully if they continue to grow, I'll get a couple additional money trees from this!

If you are not having frost or freeze, I would definitely put your plants outside in a shady spot and leave them there full-time until you have your first forecast of weather they cannot tolerate. Tropical plants love dappled sunshine, rain, fresh air and air movement/breeze. (So many gardeners forget how important that last one is...) Money trees can take full sun if acclimated to it over time (just like human skin), but since yours have been indoors, they must start in full shade. You can slowly move them into brighter light over time - and I would. These plants like some direct sun once they can handle it. Mine gets about three or four hours of direct sun every day. My neighbor's plant lives right there on his driveway and gets at least a half-day of full Florida sun. (I took the photos of his plant in the early morning when it was still in the shadows of his oak tree. Believe me, it is in full, cooking sun by mid-morning every day.)

Congratulations on rooting the cuttings. Looks like you have all of the plants well under control!

My little guy was passed to me by a co-worker. It was a braided/twisted thing - the same as you see in every big box store, but all but one of those braided plants had died under my co-worker's care. I unbraided all of the dead plants and removed them. So far, doing great with the one that is left.

New flush of leaves (oh, happy day!) ... they are the light-green ones on top... you can see the older dark-green leaves below.

Carol