Mugo pine

[Rod]

I’m figuring this tree will end up broom style, but would it be worth trying to giving it a taller apex. Letting one of the upward growing branches thicken to become an extinction of trunk?

 

[PonderingSage:]

Looks like you have a good start.

 

[Shibui]

Traditional broom style has a straight vertical trunk. Broom is the deciduous version of formal upright.
The bent trunk on this tree is traditionally informal upright - branch distribution does not really affect which style it comes under.
More recently many Western growers have been talking about 'natural' style which allows for a rounded crown on bent trunk.
Don't worry too much about style classification. Concentrate on producing the best tree from the material you have for good bonsai.

Eventually the tree is likely to be taller but Mugho grows slow so for the next 20 years or so the branches need to match the trunk thickness. IMHO the branches are a bit too long for the trunk as it is. I'd be trying to reduce the length of as many branches as possible and trying for back buds to reduce the bare areas. More shoots on the branches might also give you the opportunity to remove some of the excess branches growing close together. Those close branches will slowly contribute to reverse taper in the trunk.

 

[Rod]

Traditional broom style has a straight vertical trunk. Broom is the deciduous version of formal upright.
The bent trunk on this tree is traditionally informal upright - branch distribution does not really affect which style it comes under.
More recently many Western growers have been talking about 'natural' style which allows for a rounded crown on bent trunk.
Don't worry too much about style classification. Concentrate on producing the best tree from the material you have for good bonsai.

Eventually the tree is likely to be taller but Mugho grows slow so for the next 20 years or so the branches need to match the trunk thickness. IMHO the branches are a bit too long for the trunk as it is. I'd be trying to reduce the length of as many branches as possible and trying for back buds to reduce the bare areas. More shoots on the branches might also give you the opportunity to remove some of the excess branches growing close together. Those close branches will slowly contribute to reverse taper in the trunk.

I’m getting quite a bit of back budding and planning on reducing branch length.

 

[Rod]

Mugo Pines

Mountain Pine



UPDATED 5/20/2018



Vance, I have gathered posts you made on B-Nut over the years from the archives. I have consolidated this info below. I appreciate your sharing your years of experience with this species. Thanks, on behalf of all of us here at B-Nut...



Vance Wood on Mugos, from 2010 to present:



Posts taken from bonsainut.com archives



EVERY YEAR FOR 3 YEARS:

Cutting back this year’s new growth (extended candles) in July.

Can repot in July, but not root prune.

Remove single terminal buds by middle of August.

Branch pruning, wiring, carving, and shari by the middle of August.

Remove (with scissors) upward and downward growing needles by the middle of August.

Bud selection in the fall.



ON THE FOURTH YEAR:

No cutting back of this year’s new growth (extended candles).

Can repot and root prune in July.

Remove single terminal buds by middle of August.

Branch pruning, wiring, carving, and shari by the middle of August.

Remove (with scissors) upward and downward growing needles by the middle of August.

Bud selection in the fall.



CHOOSING A TREE: Use your fingers to dig into the soil to reveal the trunk base. You need a decent trunk to start with. This is what I tell all of the people who will listen; start with the trunk, the hardest element to develop out of nothing. Then you proceed up the tree and try to at least mentally isolate a single trunk line. This process may involve taking directions off onto side branches. Remember; with Mugo Pines the trees tend to form knuckles all over the locations where the major buds break in the Spring. You need to realize that you cannot use every thing you find on the tree and at this point you have to think about what to eliminate. Don't think upright, cascade, wind swept, slanting, or run over by a truck style (one of my favorites). Think tree. I know that sounds stupid but Mr. Miyogi in Karate Kid had it right: "Think Tree Daniel San, Think Tree." Let your mind go and look for the real possibilities the tree is giving you. Only take the tree as far as you can see where it is going. If you want to dig through everything I have ever written about Mugo Pines you will find a constant theme. It is all about the trunks, everything else can be regorwn, adjusted and even grafted; but a good trunk is irreplaceable and almost impossible to make. This is the secret of doing bonsai with Mugo Pines. In the beginning it is more an exercise of removal than almost anything else. You don't take your trees to workshops given by stupid ugly people who lack imagination.



POSITION: Full Sun, although full sun is not necessary in the winter. Shelter from the wind is preferable and if your temperatures are warm definitely not full sun in winter. The goal in winter storage is to keep the tree frozen and dormant. Too intense of sun exposure can cause the sap to rise and when the temperatures fall further the water in the sap can expand and blow out the cambium layer.



FEEDING: I feed full strength every week with Miracle Grow, and once in the Summer with Miracid. Then, continue with Miracle Grow till October.



CARVING AND SHARI: I can do any carving work that needs to be done after the middle of summer the same as every thing else.



TREATMENT OF NEW NURSERY MUGOS:

• Repot anytime after Father's Day through August. Early July is ideal.
• Remove the tree from the container. Remove the duff and detritus from the top of the soil mass. Don't go digging around for the nebari.
• Using a saw, remove one half off of the bottom of the soil mass. (Vance no longer teaches the pie cutting method of removing soil).
• Using a root hook or chopstick, loosen the circling roots. Remove only the thickest ones, no more than 25% of the circling roots.
• You can also remove approximately 1/2 of the foliage at this time.
• Plant the tree with a well-draining bonsai mix into a pond basket, colander, or specially designed bonsai planter and allow it at least three years before disturbing the roots again. A pine tree is not a garden flower that you can totally disregard the way the roots are handled; there are protocols that should be followed if you expect the tree to survive. One of those protocols is that you do not disturb the roots more than once every three years for pines.
• Aftercare: Water the tree thoroughly. Place in partial shade and watch it closely for 2 weeks or so. Don't water it again until the soil is dry down to the first knuckle under the soil.
• Bare rooting a Mugo should never be done. You can take three or four repotting cycles to replace all the old soil. I believe it is important to ljeave at least 50% of the root system intact and functioning without being disturbed. That 50% must be all around the soil ball. I have found that mugos, like many mountain pines, tend to be of a sector architecture, roots to branches top to bottom. If you kill a root you will kill the portion of the top it is attached to and the same vice versa. If you kill a major branch you will kill the root that it is attached to. It for this reason you cannot do what seems to be practice with some other pines and that is in removing the 50% of the growth from one side. The odds of destroying a critical sectored growth line to a critical part of the tree is too great. This is one of the reason some really good bonsai growers, successful with other pines, seem to kill mugos.
• Planting it in a larger pot or pond basket will allow the trunk to thicken. Your goal is to get the trunk to thicken instead of the branches, which is the tendency for young mugos. I have found that planting in a basket will thicken the trunk better than ground planting.
• Thick bark comes from many years growing in a container. You cannot get great quality bark from growing in the ground.

CANDLING:

• Don't think about de-candling until you start getting some vigorous ramification. I have found that it takes roughly two growing seasons on a new tree before things develop enough that de-candling becomes an option. Let the tree grow freely, with only selective bud selection in the fall or early spring.
• When ready, in July I totally remove the new growth all the way down to the starting point from the current seasons growth plus about an eighth of an inch of the new stem.
• There should be needles left from last year- this is where the new buds will form. These buds will not break until the next season.
• Mugos will not produce a second flush of growth as with a JBP. You are looking to produce an abundance of new smaller buds up and down the branches that will, next spring, produce shorter internodes and shorter needles.
• This de-candling method is best done for three consecutive years, letting the tree rest on the fourth year.
• At this time I also repot, but not root prune. I wait to root prune until the fourth year, in which I do not candle prune.
• Water only as needed for the next couple of weeks until new buds start to form. Provided your tree has been fertilized enough, this method will give you many new buds, especially if there are needles present to fuel their growth.

BUDS AND NEEDLES:

• When using the above method Mugos have a tendency to grow branches with only one bud at the end, instead of the three to six you normally see. But this only happens to the weakest shoots that you may have left alone and did not remove that same summer. I am not totally certain why that happens I am only certain what to do about it, and that is to pluck the single bud if it is strong and fat in the early fall, late August through September. This will cause the same back budding you get when you remove a shoot. I remove these buds using a pair of tweezers. Grasp the bud firmly at the base and twist it firmly and quickly at the base. This is best done in the early morning after watering when the growth is turgid and crisp. The buds break off cleanly without leaving a mashed mess at the base that can turn brown.
• Remove any excess buds in autumn, or in the spring before they open. Retain only two buds per terminus, in the direction of desired growth.
• Also in the middle of August I remove all of the downward and upward growing needles. I cut them leaving just a tiny bit of the fasicle behind. If you pull off the needles you may damage the bark. If a bud later forms in an undesired location, you can remove it.
• On the old wood, leave needles in the places you hope to develop new growth. These needles will be growing side to side as described previously with the removal of the up and downward growing needles. There are the dormant buds that reside right between the two needles in the fasicle and there are the latent buds that are under the bark beneath the group of needles. It is important that the tree is well fertilized or your results will be less than expected. You can often tell if your work is being rewarded if the old needles you have left start to elongate. This means that the dormant bud at the base is starting to function.
• Keep in mind that these needle reduction techniques can actually work against a tree that should be in development mode for a while.

PRUNING:

• Let the tree grow without pruning or candling until July.
• Do your branch pruning from the third week of June through August, with July being the best time, if you need a lot of back budding. For styling purposes I often do a lot of stuff in the spring like pruning and wiring. But when you do this you have to be careful and have a lot of soap to clean the sap from your hands.
• Try to limit yourself to pruning around 60% to 50% of the foliage mass, provided you are cutting back to an active small branch. It may to take a number of seasons to get it to go in the right direction. You can take off 1/3 almost anytime you desire. If you go further than that then you have to be cautious. I cannot explain how to tell at what point that might be.
• The process of chasing growth backward is to allow new buds down low to develop, then cut back the branch to a lower branchlet once it is strong enough to pull its weight. From this point you allow the new branch to develop unchallenged for a couple of years until it show that it can a grow well. When new buds break down on old wood they tend to be very fragile and irreparably damaged. It usually takes two years for these new branches to gain enough strength to stand the normal abuse of life as a bonsai.
• I usually leave my Mugos alone after November. A tree stores up energy in the branches to pull it through the winters. If you start eliminating them right before winter you risk the health of the tree.
• You can reduce small branchlets about 50% in early spring without damage if the tree is healthy, and established in bonsai soil.
• Make sure you leave at least a one inch stub or you will lose portions of the trunk or larger branches they are connected to, due to a die back of the roots they were associated with. Leave these stubs intact for at least one year before further reduction or carving. If possible, leave a small living twig on the stub. This will help slow down die-back on the trunk.
• Form a trunk line by following a group of successive branches upward to establish a single trunk line, whereas initially you may only have a fat base with a lot of branches coming out all over the place. It may be possible to make the entire bonsai from the first set of branches or maybe the second set of branches as you proceed up the tree.This is the way my mind works, look for the smallest believable tree.
• As we open up the tree to light, new buds are likely to form on the interior branches. Grow the tree inward and try to increase branching in close to the trunk.
• One thing I have come to realize, or maybe accept, is the fact that finding a Mugo that is only one or two steps away from being a bonsai is almost a myth. Most nursery Mugos are in need of major reduction; a process I look at as weathering. In the wild the weather and environment are pretty brutal with these trees. Branches are broken, the dead wood is polished, splintered and any number of things over any number of years eventually revealing an image that is worthy of a bonsai. Most of this with nursery material must be done by you and I. You are going to have to spend time with this tree looking at it from all angles and directions and in different light exposures.
• Shari on the trunk will, in time, cause the trunk to thicken on the areas around the shari. Because of this you may want to consider continuing to extend the shari down to the surface level to thicken the trunk.
• Most of the time people who run into trouble have that trouble because they do not leave any kind of balance on all aspects of the tree. When you start taking one side of the tree off without thinking about what you are doing this is the likely time you will lose a tree.
• I don't particularly care for escape branches I have never had a circumstance where they were as important as with JBP's, mostly because of the styles they are grown in. I have found that over time the Mugo will thicken fine given time.
• Inone of his videos, Vance removed a lot of large branches; however, he left at least one branch on the large stubs to keep the circulation on that branch. That way, you don't risk losing an entire half of a tree.
• Don't whack a Pine they don't respond to the process well.
• I know there it the concept of one insult a year floating around out there, floating around like something that should be flushed but keeps coming back up again. With Mugo and Shimpakus this simply is not true --- at least here in Michigan.

WIRING:Wiring can be done in the summer, after pruning. I have never noticed an adverse reaction to anything I have done provided it is at the right time of the year. The only adverse effect I have noticed is when I get impatient and start wiring the tree before the end of June. Then I might slip the bark, bust off a bud or two and the wire might start to bite into the bark too early.



PESTS AND DISEASES:

• There are two diseases which Mugos are prone to: needle cast and pine scale.
• Needle cast is a fungal infection that attacks the two and three year old needles. They turn yellow and then fall off. There is little danger in it killing the tree but they do make cutting back to green growth a bit more difficult. I spray with Captan or Daconil in the fall and early spring to hinder or eliminate needle cast.
• The other is pine scale. This species of scale looks like speckles of white paint sprinkled on the needles. These bugs can decimate a tree in short order and Mugos are more susceptible to it than other pines. Look for the slightest sign of it. It can spread rapidly during the summer. You will see it first between the two needles. It’s easy to miss until it spreads to the outside of the bundles. If you catch it early it is easy to control with a tooth brush and some denatured alcohol. You simply dip the brush in the alcohol and gently scrub the bug off the needle in the same direction the needle grows- outward. The alcohol kills the bug and dissolves the white shell which forms its scale. It is also possible to control with an early application of some insecticides designed for scale. I stick with the alcohol treatment, I detest insecticides unless absolutely necessary.

WATERING:

• Mugos like a lot more water than JBP & JWP, but don't like to have their feet wet. This means that your soil mix has to be fast draining and you have to be willing to water more. Mugos need to breathe.
• This means that they need the process or cycle of the air being driven out of the soil when watered and the air being drawn in as the water drains out. Mugos cannot stay dry like other pines. They need to be watered constantly; sometimes two to three times a day when it's hot. However, they cannot sit in wet soil.

B & B MUGOS:

• A tree balled in burlap is much different than one grown in a container. A container grown Mugo is usually root bound and cutting back a massive amount of the soil mass is possible.
• A B&B is never root bound; it is in fact in most cases root deficient, because most are freshly dug from the growing bed. Usually there is a large quantity of clay in the soil mix because it will hold the root ball together well. Most of the B&B Mugos I have worked with went straight into a screen sided planter and stayed there for several years.
• I have washed soil off the roots until 50% of the soil mass was removed. That is usually enough to allow room in the screen planter for developing feeder roots.
• Do nothing else to the tree. It should not be sprayed, pruned, wired, or otherwise worked on. Simply leave it alone.

BRANCH KNUCKLES:

• Knuckles form when multiple branches grow out of the same spot, thereby eventually thickening the trunk or branch at that point. If possible, it is best to not allow knuckles to form in the first place. If already present when you get the tree, they are best dealt with by cutting all the branches back as far as possible to induce new buds below the whorl. If new buds form and grow, then remove the whorl altogether. You encourage growth below the whorls. With care it is then possible to cut below the whorl/knuckle, provided there is viable growth below it. Try not to incorporate one of these features in a design if it can be avoided. It is true that as a tree ages their visual dominance will diminish but it takes years, and it is better when possible to develop growth without them.
• In young trees with a knuckle that is only one or two seasons old, you can prune below the knuckle, as long as there are needles existing below the cut point. Any buds forming below the cut should be saved. These give you future points to cut back the branch and keep growth close to the trunk. You can then select two buds to retain per terminus on these new branches.
• To prevent knuckle formation in the future, carefully manage what buds you allow to develop. Mugos unlike many other pines tend to put out branch growth that is almost as large and thick as the trunks that support them. This demands that you have to cut back most of the branches to obtain new branches of less mass than those they replaced. Often you will see some long and straight branches that have expanses of bare wood that have a lot of needles but no buds. These branches will have to be dealt with sooner rather than later and in general will be of little use to you as a bonsai. A good percentage of the time most nursery Mugos need to have their branches regrown over time.
• Knuckles will eventually be absorbed in the thickening of the trunk, if you don't allow them to get so thick in the beginning that it becomes imposible to remove or over-power them. I have started cutting them off when they present what I consider an unsurmountable obsticle. Mugos back bud so profusely, if treated the right way, it is not a major problem to get eipicormic buds to pop below the knuckle if the tree is not too old and it is healthy.

OVERWINTERING:Mugos do not need special shelter in the winter except a wind break of some kind. I have found most of then huddled together like a clan of wolves shelter each other with a bale of straw on the windward side to stop the effects of the wind. I have found that they can even endure being left out fully exposed the entire winter and survive.