Pinus mugo 'White Bud'

[emorrin]

To make a long story short, I came across a dwarf mugo pine, a Pinus mugo 'White Bud', and ended up buying it. It is a young nursery plant and is only approximately 5 inches high from the soil line. I think it will make a nice mame bonsai in the future, that is if I can keep it alive, and has a resemblance to my Japanese Black Pine 'Thunderhead' cultivar (i.e. color of needles mainly). I have heard that dwarf mugo pines are more sensitive to pruning and do not like to be stlyed and root pruned at the same time. I have also heard that some people do not recommend dwarf mugo pines for bonsai. I do not know how much of this is true or not, hence why I am posting now. Ok, so here comes my question:

Is there any other thing in particular I should be careful about? (i.e. root pruning, branch pruning, etc.)

I plan on treating it like a regular mugo pine other than being more careful with root pruning (i.e. only bare rooting half and cutting no more than 20% of the roots. Also, not styling and repotting at the same time even though a young regular mugo pine can usually take it without any issues. When I say treat it like a regular mugo pine, I mean treat it like a 2 pine needle but also take Vance Wood's mugo pine specific advice (i.e. repotting in late summer, his pruning suggestions, etc.)

Any advice specific to this cultivar would be greatly appreciated.

Here is a picture:

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii208/emorrin/BonsaiRomeo235.jpg

 

[JasonG]

I see this is a product of Iseli nursery...they are down the road from us and have been designing mugos for years...many of todays varieties were a result of Iseli Nursery. I would think finding specifics on the white bud will be tough....espically for bonsai. If it were me I would treat it the same as a typical mugo with the exception I would probably be a bit more cautious....like just doing root work in spring and then wiring in fall, etc...not both at the same time.

Best of luck with this little guy....

Jason

 

[Vance Wood]

If you do the root work in spring it is most likely that the tree will sit and sulk for the next two years. This seems to be the standard response to spring repotting of the dwarf cultivars. So--fore-warned is fore-armed, and you know what to expect.

 

[emorrin]

So should I re pot in late summer, August timeframe, just like a regular mugo? I live in Illinois 5b.

I do not plan on doing any styling this year. I just want to let it grow for a couple of years. To be on the safe side, it sounds like I should go this route after re potting this year. I will only root prune enough so that it will fit into a slightly shallower pot this year. I will only bare root half of the roots this time around and will re pot in a 20% organic (i.e. aged pine bark, sphagnum peat moss) and 80% inorganic (i.e. Turface, crushed lava rock, hard akadama, grit) mix. I will only fertilize at a normal rate (i.e. no super feeding, etc.).

Since this is the first year I really got interested in pines, I am experimenting with different techniques to see what is best with Mugo pines. I am finding that Mugo pines are comparable to Japanese Black Pines and am actually favoring them over the Japanese Black Pine.

 

[JasonG]

So should I re pot in late summer, August timeframe, just like a regular mugo? I live in Illinois 5b.

Since this is the first year I really got interested in pines, I am experimenting with different techniques to see what is best with Mugo pines. I am finding that Mugo pines are comparable to Japanese Black Pines and am actually favoring them over the Japanese Black Pine.

Mugos are ok, but are very slow to grow. A mugo might give you 5 or 6 inches of growth a year where a JPB will give you several feet of growth a year, and I am talking about field growing, it is even slower in a pot! Mugo is a cool tree though. I wish we had some like Europe has...man good stuff!

If you do the root work in spring it is most likely that the tree will sit and sulk for the next two years. This seems to be the standard response to spring repotting of the dwarf cultivars. So--fore-warned is fore-armed, and you know what to expect.

Here in the PNW, we see just the opposite. Mugos do good with spring repotting...I think it must be a climate thing between our locations.

Jason

 

[Vance Wood]

So should I re pot in late summer, August timeframe, just like a regular mugo? I live in Illinois 5b.

I do not plan on doing any styling this year. I just want to let it grow for a couple of years. To be on the safe side, it sounds like I should go this route after re potting this year. I will only root prune enough so that it will fit into a slightly shallower pot this year. I will only bare root half of the roots this time around and will re pot in a 20% organic (i.e. aged pine bark, sphagnum peat moss) and 80% inorganic (i.e. Turface, crushed lava rock, hard akadama, grit) mix. I will only fertilize at a normal rate (i.e. no super feeding, etc.).

Since this is the first year I really got interested in pines, I am experimenting with different techniques to see what is best with Mugo pines. I am finding that Mugo pines are comparable to Japanese Black Pines and am actually favoring them over the Japanese Black Pine.

I am not hands on familiar with this cultivar but all of the dwarf cultivars I have dealt with do not like spring repotting much. How about posting a few pictures?

 

[emorrin]

Vance, I posted a link to a picture here:

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii208/emorrin/BonsaiRomeo235.jpg

I will take a few additional pictures and post them when I get a chance.

It is nothing special right now, only a young nursery plant. However, I do see a nice mame in training here. All my pines are 5 to 10 year (and probably longer) projects to get them anywhere near the "bonsai" stage.

The reason why this particular mugo pine caught my eyes is the light green color of the needles. It looks more like a Japanese Black Pine than the regular mugo does.

I have a 9 year old "pre-bonsai in training" Japanese Black Pine 'Thunderhead'. I think the White Bud dwarf mugo would be a good companion piece to it.

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii208/emorrin/BonsaiRomeo212.jpg

 

[Vance Wood]

Vance, I posted a link to a picture here:

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii208/emorrin/BonsaiRomeo235.jpg

I will take a few additional pictures and post them when I get a chance.

It is nothing special right now, only a young nursery plant. However, I do see a nice mame in training here. All my pines are 5 to 10 year (and probably longer) projects to get them anywhere near the "bonsai" stage.

The reason why this particular mugo pine caught my eyes is the light green color of the needles. It looks more like a Japanese Black Pine than the regular mugo does.

I have a 9 year old "pre-bonsai in training" Japanese Black Pine 'Thunderhead'. I think the White Bud dwarf mugo would be a good companion piece to it.

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii208/emorrin/BonsaiRomeo212.jpg

I think a Shohin would be a better possibility, a Mame would be a pretty small tree to try and cut this one down to. As to the best time to repot and do root work I will leave that up to you, I think you already know what I do and one other has told you what he does.

 

[waltr1]

I'm not good with the dwarf mugos as I've killed two so far. Both worked on in mid-summer. I've had my third one for a year now and I'm scared to do anything to it. lol
However the species mugo I have is doing great following Vance's guidelines.

Nice looking Thunderhead. You may want to consider work to promote some back budding before the branches get too long.

Please keep us posted on both these trees.

 

[emorrin]

Maybe a Shohin would be a better choice for the White Bud afterall since it seems like they don't like any type of severe pruning. Right now my only focus will be keeping it alive and getting some trunk girth. I will re pot it along with my other regular mugos in late July, early August timeframe. I may prune a small branch or two and remove a few needles that are growing downward, but that would be about it. I looked online for addtional information pertaining to the White Bud cultivar but could not find anything specific pertaining to it. This being the case, I will treat it like a regular mugo pine but be a little more on the cautious side.

 

[ghues]

Dwarf Mugo

Hello,
As I have had some experience with young baby mugo’s this year, I thought I’d add to the discussion. I live on Vancouver Island, BC Canada.
I was able to purchase two sets (2x10) of two different dwarf mugo pines (directly from a forest seedling nursery late this winter (January30th). They were grown for a year in what is called a stryoblock which has cavities (120 holes), being approx. 4cm wide and 10cm deep (1.5”x4”). (I just plucked the ones I like out of the stryroblock containers, put them into a plastic sandwich bag for the journey home).
I brought them straight home and repotted them into an assortment of small plastic pots. As a trial I cut off the bottom 2cm of the plug (soil) on over half of them, most of the rest went into regular small pots as they were, while some I had to bare-root (as the soil fell away). As of today, I’ve had two die on me (one bare-root and one normal), a couple that have defineately had a growth reduction but the remainder are doing really well and look v. healthy.
My thoughts are to repot them this fall into bigger pots, but not too big as I’m not in a hurry for them to grow too large too quickly as I find that growing trees in containers provides slow even growth and matures more naturally.
Cheers G.