Greetings,

I recently repotted what I thought were two very slow-growing multi-trunked dwarf scheffleras potted together. To my surprise, each "plant" was in fact a dozen single trunk scheffs (as if someone wrapped a rubber band around a dozen cuttings and stuck them as a group). No wonder they hardly grew, though they've been otherwise healthy over the last six months. I've separated them out (I'm going to try to attach a picture of the separated plants temporarily in a bed of perlite) and am trying to figure out what to do with them. I have several bonsai books, but have never actually tried it, and was somewhat surprised to see that dwarf scheffs have a good rep as an indoor bonsai. Does it make any sense at all to use one or more of these plants as a future bonsai? Are dwarf scheffs good as groves, or are they better as single plant bonsais? They seem healthy, and haven't shown any stress after being separated, but are plants with this kind of history a bad risk for bonsai? Any insights would be helpful.

Image link: