Since I got it, some of the leaves were dark green and some were partially yellow. It does not look healthy to me. In the past few days, the leaves kept on dropping off. When I tried to take off some unhealthy leaves today, half of them dropped off.

I wonder if the plant is ill? Shall I change the soil for it?

I want to make it having leaves from the top down to the bottom of the plant. Unfortunately there are only leaves on the top. I read from the internet that I can plant another pot by taking a branch off from the Schefflera. How could I do this?

Could anyone give me some suggestion please? Thanks a lot!

I enclosed a few pictures of this plant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layering

you can also wrap a section of the plant stem with spagnum moss covered in syran wrap and keep the moss moist, the plant will eventually send roots into moss and you can cut below the root line and plant.

Or you can cut the plant at any level and use a rooting hormone with a nice perilite filled potting soil and try to root it that way.

The only way to get a shef to bud back lower is to cut it where you want it to grow multiple heads from. I've seen larger trees grow new heads on their trunks... but i haven't had that kind of luck.

I've also heard that if you make a V cut on the stem (not all the way through the plant just on the outer skin) that that will force a new head to bud from the cut... I have tried this on big umbrella types but never on the smaller types... It worked.

I wish you goodluck!