schefflera trunk thickening

[artisanoo]

Hi guys - got a question about another tree of mine.
its a scheff, ive had it since it was 4 inches tall and maybe a quarter inch diameter. that was a few years ago. its now almost 2 feet tall and maybe half an inch thick at the base.

id like to speed the thickening of the trunk but not sure of the best approach.
in the past ive been told that the best way to thicken is to just leave a tree alone and not prune it yet. but the issue is that this tree is acting like a typical scheff and not branching at all.

so my question is, in the long run, will the trunk thicken faster if
a) I cut it now, hard, to force it to branch, and allow all the branches to grow out, which will thicken the trunk nicely (supprting more foliage->bigger trunk?)
b) I leave it alone

I undertsand that option a will basically halt the trunk widening in the short term, but I'm wondering if it will catch up faster than it would have otherwise, once it grows more branches..

I'm tempted to just cut off the top 18"-20" and just try and root it as a new tree, leaving the stump to grow again. advice?

[bonsaiboy]

It would seem cutting it hard would thicken the trunk better than just letting it grow. Perhaps when the first branches start to grow, you should let them grow out as you did the original trunk as to thicken both the trunk more and the branches.

[artisanoo]

gotcha.
I currently have a toilet paper tube (the cardboard thing) filled with soil around the base of the trunk - I was experimenting with drawing out some aerial roots. ill probably leave that on for a while longer, and once I have roots in there (hopefully soon ) then ill chop to about 5-7 inches or so (just above the tube. )
hopefully should produce a very interesting trunk with the rootage.