Results from summer Repot 2012

[Vance Wood]

The following are examples of some of my Mugho Pines which were repotted and abused in Late June and early August of 2012. Temperatures were in the mid to upper 90's. The first three were pruned, wired and repotted. More to follow.

 

[Vance Wood]

The following are examples of some of my Mugho Pines which were repotted and abused in Late June and early August of 2012. Temperatures were in the mid to upper 90's. The first three were pruned, wired and repotted. More to follow.


View attachment 35627 View attachment 35628 View attachment 35629 View attachment 35630 View attachment 35631

Here come some more. Most of the following are of trees just reduced down from raw stock, some of those will be reduced down much further into shohin bonsai.

 

[Vance Wood]

Here comes a few more with some details to follow as necessary. The point of all of this is to demonstrate that a lot can be done with Mugos this time of year and that the trees seem to respond as well as those that have not been touched at all as demonstrated by the new bud growth.

 

[october]

These are very nice trees. On the more finished trees. Are you going to remove the candles this July. I believe you said you remove the candles and do not pinch. Is this correct? Is there a time when mugho candles are pinched?

Rob

 

[Vance Wood]

These are very nice trees. On the more finished trees. Are you going to remove the candles this July. I believe you said you remove the candles and do not pinch. Is this correct? Is there a time when mugho candles are pinched?

Rob

The candles on all of the trees illustrated will be removed in July unless I desire the branch to elongate for style reasons. As far as what people mean by "Pinching" is questionable. I wish someone could, or would, take on the task of identifying terms accurately, and defining what they mean. Just the act of managing new growth is fraught with an abundance of conflicting terms used interchangeably that may or may not mean the same thing. Let's examine pinching. It could mean truncating a bud by as much as two-thirds it's length by pinching the candle, or bud, or shoot, or new growth with the thumb and finger, or fingers, of the hand. OR, it could mean breaking off the candle, bud, shoot or new growth by twisting it or snapping it off at the same location. OR, it could mean clipping of the candle, bud, shoot, or new growth with a pair of tweezers, or scissors.

So in this case bud removal is not much different from pinching and in some cases or applications it could be called pinching. It involves the removal of the extended bud with basically open needles all the way back to its point of Spring origin leaving just a bit of the new grown bud without needles.

As to the question of treating the more finished trees in this way the answer is absolutely. With Mugos and Scots Pines this is the way I get them to ramify. I use this technique no more than three years in a row. On the fourth year I let the tree grow out.

 

[Vance Wood]

These are very nice trees. On the more finished trees. Are you going to remove the candles this July. I believe you said you remove the candles and do not pinch. Is this correct? Is there a time when mugho candles are pinched?

Rob

In the fourth year if you get some really vigorous buds producing vigorous candles.

 

[october]

Thanks Vance, yes, I did not specify the degree of pinching. I meant the typical twist a portion of a candle off with your fingers.

Also, is this done (cutting the candles) each July on "finished" trees? Given healthy and normal growing trees. If so, seems like Mughos might be the easiest of pines to maintain. There have been a couple of mughos I saw in pictures several years ago that were some of the greatest specimens of pine bonsai material that I have even seen. Between having amazing potential and being such low maintenance, I have always been surprised that they are not used more often in bonsai.

Rob

 

[Vance Wood]

Thanks Vance, yes, I did not specify the degree of pinching. I meant the typical twist a portion of a candle off with your fingers.

Also, is this done (cutting the candles) each July on "finished" trees? Given healthy and normal growing trees. If so, seems like Mughos might be the easiest of pines to maintain. There have been a couple of mughos I saw in pictures several years ago that were some of the greatest specimens of pine bonsai material that I have even seen. Between having amazing potential and being such low maintenance, I have always been surprised that they are not used more often in bonsai.

Rob

For some reason or another they have for many years been deemed a pariah in the bonsai world especially in the USA, where it seems people first started fooling around with them.
As seems to be the case today in the States it seems that the standard way of thinking is just now starting to grow beyond the concept that if the tree is not from Asia "It ain't no good!".

Because the Mugo has been such a wide spread landscape tree for many years in America it is viewed almost as an unwelcome guest that flourishes every where. In other words it was considered a trash tree not worth the efforts of real bonsai artists.

Then a number of years ago the Europeans began using the tree in bonsai because it is available as Yamadori in Europe, and some spectacular results have begun to emerge from those sources. So at least the Mugo is no longer considered garbage, just those grown for the nursery trade----we have to maintain the image that the Mugo is a crap tree in the nursery trade because it is not the same as the Yamadori species'. The only crap is this storied quasi determination of the quality of this tree.

The reason there is still a resistance to this tree is because very few world class artists have not been willing to hang their reputations on this tree's differences to JBP though in many ways it is a superior tree. And yet another; it's just to easy to be braged about. It would seem that I am about the only consistent voice and user for the Mugo Pine over the last forty years willing to put up with the pillorying and bad mouthing from my peers for using such a lousy tree as a bonsai. I may not be Kimura or O'Neal or an artist approaching their works, so for years I have had to endure the curse of the mediocre bonsai, to Oh that's just another Mugo Pine.

Mugos do have things you have to look out for, the two major ones are needle cast and Pine Scale. Needle cast wont kill a tree but it will hinder your results in obtaining back budding. Pine scale can do a number on the tree and must be watched out for. Needle cast can be dealt with using fungicides and Pine scale with a home remedy of Neem oil, Palmolive dishwashing liquid, and Alcohol put into a water solution.

 

[Joedes3]

As always, another informative thread.

I have a couple of mugo pine that made it through the New England winter very nicely. The are many buds growing and now I am waiting for July to work on the trees.

Vance, thanks again for the post.

Joe DeS

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

They look happy Vance, its a great time of the season when the new candles are just stretching out!

 

[tmmason10]

Thanks for posting Vance, very interesting stuff. Those trees are looking good, and you appear to have quite a lot of them. D you ever work some for sale? Seems like there is a definite lack of good mugs pre bonsai.

 

[Paradox]

Nice trees as always Vance.

You may have endured ridicule for your love of mugos. I think you can take heart in the fact that your persistence and willingness to show off the mugo has paid off through many of us newbies being willing to take up the species. I now have 6 of them and I am quite attached to them.

The one Ive had the longest formed one little back bud last year even though I havent really been trying to get backbudding on it yet. Ive been eagerly watching that little bud since last year to see if it would survive. I was thrilled a couple of weeks ago when I saw that little back bud start to extend and grow.

 

[Vance Wood]

Nice trees as always Vance.

You may have endured ridicule for your love of mugos. I think you can take heart in the fact that your persistence and willingness to show off the mugo has paid off through many of us newbies being willing to take up the species. I now have 6 of them and I am quite attached to them.

The one Ive had the longest formed one little back bud last year even though I havent really been trying to get backbudding on it yet. Ive been eagerly watching that little bud since last year to see if it would survive. I was thrilled a couple of weeks ago when I saw that little back bud start to extend and grow.

Be really careful of the little guy. They are easily damaged and or broken off. In general if the bud is in a place where it seems to be slow it could take three seasons to gain enough strength to do anything worth pinching, trimming, or cutting back.

 

[chansen]

Vance -

You're pictures have inspired me to acquire a mugo or two... so thanks a lot!

I'm interested in hearing how you generally proceed, year over year, recognizing that the health of the plant tends to dictate what's done. Would you mind sharing what your process is for a newly acquired nursery mugo pine (assuming purchase is made now)? Would you repot in the first summer, how much root mass are you comfortable removing, etc.

Your trees look great. You're obviously treating them right and I'd like to make sure I do the same.

 

[Vance Wood]

Vance -

You're pictures have inspired me to acquire a mugo or two... so thanks a lot!

I'm interested in hearing how you generally proceed, year over year, recognizing that the health of the plant tends to dictate what's done. Would you mind sharing what your process is for a newly acquired nursery mugo pine (assuming purchase is made now)? Would you repot in the first summer, how much root mass are you comfortable removing, etc.

Your trees look great. You're obviously treating them right and I'd like to make sure I do the same.

You have to understand from the beginning that I would hunt down a Mugo that may be quite different from anything the majority of first time Mugo growers would come up with. Most of the trees I am shown on the INTERNET, by people asking the questions you are asking, would probably be passed by, in my selection process.

Most of the trees I am shown lack a good sized trunk base that can be a foundation for future development making an initial decision to proceed, in a particular direction other than one to develop stock for future use the only option.

I have a formula or method that I engage in to pick my stock that deserves a separate thread but the bottom line with it is that you have to be able to imagine in your mind what you are feeling with your hands grubbing around under the branches and the soil surface of a nursery grown tree.

As you gain experience in this area you should begin to develop the ability to see in your mind where a particular tree can go---see the future sort of. Most of what I hear from people are thought out styles based on some arbitrary decision that "gee I think this tree might be a good _____?" so I'll go there.

So to more directly answer your question yes, unless there seems to be a problem with the tree that needs to be addressed, by the middle of summer the tree will be into a screen-sided container, pond basket or colander having the soil mass reduced by around 50% and the top pruned enough to encourage what I think at the time the direction of the tree will be.

I'm sorry but I am afraid I have given you more question than answer at this point. Mugos are unlike other Pines you are likely to find and use as bonsai. They are so easily trained into shrubs and small trees that look more like bushes than trees you are not likely to find a Mugo that looks like a traditional Pine tree where their initial appearance says tree. The nursery trade has sheared this guys down into bushes.

 

[chansen]

So to more directly answer your question yes, unless there seems to be a problem with the tree that needs to be addressed, by the middle of summer the tree will be into a screen-sided container, pond basket or colander having the soil mass reduced by around 50% and the top pruned enough to encourage what I think at the time the direction of the tree will be.

Perfect information, thanks for sharing. I've developed (I think) a decent eye for a trunk/tree. Just had bad luck with pines in the past. I'm in a better location for pines now (more sun), and I'll have some south facing bench space to fill up.

Thanks again,

 

[Vance Wood]

Perfect information, thanks for sharing. I've developed (I think) a decent eye for a trunk/tree. Just had bad luck with pines in the past. I'm in a better location for pines now (more sun), and I'll have some south facing bench space to fill up.

Thanks again,

I see you live in Salt Lake, I was born there. Lived there till I was twelve when we moved to California. You ought to think about collecting some Junipers and Pinion Pines, they grow there and not too far from the city---get permission to dig.

By the way, is there anyone in your family named Dolph who should be in their late 60's? I had a friend with your name when I was in elementary school..

 

[bougie nights]

Vance-
It is always a treat seeing your mugos and reading your posts.

 

[Vance Wood]

Vance-
It is always a treat seeing your mugos and reading your posts.

Thank you very much. I enjoy writting them as long as there are people who are willing to learn about this great tree.

 

[Poink88]

I enjoy writting them as long as there are people who are willing to learn about this great tree.

Vance,

More people read, listen, and taking notes than you hear about. Please keep writing.

Thank you very much for sharing your experience and knowledge.