1st year living with my Mugo. Please help!

Ccaru

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Hi All, first post here.

Back in March I took the plunge purchasing a 45 year old Mugo for my south facing front lawn. I've done a lot of research but I seem to only find conflicting views on when to candle, prune and fertilize.

This is my first year with this pine so I am not quite sure what to expect. My worry is that it's now (end of August) shed so many needles that it's looking a bit sparse now. It's still looking fine but i also understand that it's best to catch issues early, so I would like to prevent further issues. Here is what I did so far. I would really appreciate if somebody could point out what I did wrong/could do better.

Planted in March - it came with it's root ball wrapped in jute. We put down around 300L of Mediterranean style compost in the bottom and sides. No further feeding provided.
I installed drip style watering and water it around 1 or 2 times a week around 50L
Many candles formed late May/early June. I couldn't get the feel on when was the right time (and now i read that perhaps this was all wrong) to pinch the candles so I did it in stages.
Late August : while it generally looks rather healthy, it's lost a LOT of needles, and it's looking much sparser than it did when I initially planted it. I could literally plunge my hand into one of the pads and pick up a fist full of brown needles, so I cleaned it all up. I noticed an intricate network of dead branches (2-3mm thick, still flexible, but they lost all their needles) on the inside and underside of each pad. I pruned these back to the main branches, thinking it will aid circulation and help the needles fall to the ground rather than staying stuck into the pads. I'm not sure this was a good move either!

So my questions are this: I understand a Mugo is a single flush pine. In general, I would like it to retain it's shape, but I don't mind it growing larger. See attached picture for detail.
- Was the candle pinching a bad move - should I have left them grow and then pruned back in August
- Did I do well to remove the dead branches or should this have been done at another point during the year, perhaps in December?
- So far, due to the compost being new and already containing fertilizer (lasting 100 days it says on the sacks) I have not fertilized. Should I fertilize now to encourage growth, or is it already too late and I should wait until next spring?

Any other tips you could give me which will help me not kill my tree?

Thank you!

Claude
 

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sorce

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Seems shearing the candles in spring keeps em tidy in the yard.

Welcome to Crazy!

Sorce
 

Paradox

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@Ccaru

You can apply bonsai pruning techniques for mugo to help maintain its shape. However be aware that while these techniques will work, the tree still grows and you will eventually need to do selective pruning back to maintain shape.

Mugo are single flush as you have discovered.
For single flush pines, we pinch long candles in half or more (depending on their strength as indicated by their length). We typically do this in May or June depending on where you are located. Note: this is not the same thing as "candle cutting" that is described for Japanese black pine a.k.a. double flush pines where we remove the entire new shoot in late June or early July.

You stated that it lost a lot of needles. Were these needles from the interior parts of the branches? If so this is normal sledding of 3 year old needles.

It's fine to fertilize now. There is still some growing season left. How long into the fall you continue to feed depends on where you are and the weather each year. For a tree in the ground you probably can feed it every couple of months during the growing season.

Please put your location in your profile so we can give you appropriate information.

It's fine to remove dead branches at any time. They are dead, the tree doesn't care if they are there any more.
 

Ccaru

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@Ccaru

You can apply bonsai pruning techniques for mugo to help maintain its shape. However be aware that while these techniques will work, the tree still grows and you will eventually need to do selective pruning back to maintain shape.

Mugo are single flush as you have discovered.
For single flush pines, we pinch long candles in half or more (depending on their strength as indicated by their length). We typically do this in May or June depending on where you are located. Note: this is not the same thing as "candle cutting" that is described for Japanese black pine a.k.a. double flush pines where we remove the entire new shoot in late June or early July.

You stated that it lost a lot of needles. Were these needles from the interior parts of the branches? If so this is normal sledding of 3 year old needles.

It's fine to fertilize now. There is still some growing season left. How long into the fall you continue to feed depends on where you are and the weather each year. For a tree in the ground you probably can feed it every couple of months during the growing season.

Please put your location in your profile so we can give you appropriate information.

It's fine to remove dead branches at any time. They are dead, the tree doesn't care if they are there any more.
Thank you so much!
Just updated my location profile - I live in Luxembourg, so Zone 6/7.
About the needle shed - I was aware it would shed 3 year old needles - to me logicially that would have been around a third of the needles but it feels much more. Perhaps I am wrong, and perhaps it feels more because they were longer, more established needles than the new stuff so now it's feeling a bit more bare.
Thank you for the tip on fertilizing. Here we find some long duration fertilizer for conifers (Composana brand) - I'll try that!

regards
 

Deep Sea Diver

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Welcome aboard BonsaiNut!

As @Paradox mentioned, use your detective skills and identify where on each branch the needles are shedding. If these needles are the furthest foliage in from the branch and branchlet tips, then all is well. 1/3 of the needles on a landscape tree can be a suprising amount of needles once shedded. If the majority of the needles shed aren’t from the interior of the foliage, then that would be an issue.

Just for some ground truth, my Mugos have been dropping interior needles for the past three weeks.

cheers and welcome aboard once again!
DSD sends
 

Potawatomi13

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Are you growing yard tree or to be Bonsai in pot?
 

hinmo24t

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I'm growing it straight in the ground, but i'd like to maintain its general Bonsai shape through the next years (hopefully!)
nice looking tree


neat location btw, my buddy (goalie on hockey team) won the Luxembourg Art Prize in 2017
 
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