Noob Nursery Mugo (Vance Wood Method)

[MSU JBoots]

I decided to get a mugo as I read good things and they are very winter hardy in my zone. I have read Vance Wood is the mugo master and happens to live in Michigan too so it would seem stupid not to follow his advice. I am attempting to follow the Vance Method outlined in the resource section. This lead me to a summer repot which is something I would not have ever considered so fingers crossed.
Here’s the tree in all her glory prior to messing with it.

 

[MSU JBoots]

A pic of the root ball before work, then after. I deviated slightly from Vance (shame, shame I know) in that I did start by digging down from the top then worked the bottom and sides with a chopstick just enough to fit it in the pond basket with some bonsai jack soil. The last picture are the handful of circling roots I cut. There was one very large root circling the trunk that I started with as it was eventually going to strangle the tree.

 

[MSU JBoots]

A couple final pics of the tree after all the work. I removed only the finer twiggy branches growing from the trunk that I didn’t see being part of the future design and left anything attached to a major structural branch. I can finally see the trunk and will take likely a year to decide on a future trunk line prior to pruning again next year if it’s healthy enough. I likely would have not purchased this one as I wasn’t thrilled with the trunk but my wife bought it for me and she has been luke warm on my new hobby so I wasn’t going to complain. It wasn’t until I was bulk filling the voids with my chopstick that I realized it was planted too high. Which means I either should have put less soil in the bottom or reduced the bottom root mass more. Live and learn. As always I enjoyed the process and look forward to the next steps.

Sorry for the long post but I know a post like this with multiple steps of the process instead of just the start and end is what I find particularly helpful as a beginner. I hope this and others in the future will help the next group of newbies.

 

[Paradox]

Good start.
Keep it watered when it needs it. New soil tends to dry out fast. Study it and dont do any more until next year at the earliest.

 

[cmu268]

Nice! I picked up a mugo from a nursery back in May and repotted on Friday. I've been watering 2-3 times per day since. Look forward to seeing how yours progresses.

 

[MSU JBoots]

Nice! I picked up a mugo from a nursery back in May and repotted on Friday. I've been watering 2-3 times per day since. Look forward to seeing how yours progresses.

Thanks. I picked up a second smaller one today. I’m considering if I follow the same steps or wait for a spring repot to test different timing on things.

 

[mgonz121]

I picked up what I think it’s a Mugo Pine from Lowes (it was on sale). I pruned and wired it, but did not repot. I didn’t even take it out from it’s original plastic pot. I will not do anything else until next year. Hopefully it will survive. Let me know if I did too much. Here are pictures of the before and after

 

[MSU JBoots]

I picked up what I think it’s a Mugo Pine from Lowes (it was on sale). I pruned and wired it, but did not repot. I didn’t even take it out from it’s original plastic pot. I will not do anything else until next year. Hopefully it will survive. Let me know if I did too much. Here are pictures of the before and after View attachment 449963

I new to bonsai but I feel very comfortable saying that is not a mugo instead is some type of juniper. It didn’t look very healthy to start and you removed a ton of foliage. I would give it very conservative care and hope it survives.

 

[Japonicus]

is some type of juniper

Yeh looks like a Blue Star juniper. Will take more than luck to recover from such defoliation while sick.
Did you mention which cultivar of mugo yours is?

 

[mgonz121]

Thanks for the reply. I was able to find the tag from the tree and indeed is it a Juniper (green mound). Hopefully it will survive. I will post an update. I am located in Michigan as well

 

[LuZiKui]

Thanks for the reply. I was able to find the tag from the tree and indeed is it a Juniper (green mound). Hopefully it will survive. I will post an update. I am located in Michigan as well

Just FYI it's customary to start a new thread for your trees. You should start a fresh thread with your Juniper and people can provide more feedback/advice and MSU JBoots can keep this thread focused on his Mugo. Welcome to Bnut!

 

[mgonz121]

Sorry to MSU JBoots. I will start a new thread

 

[MSU JBoots]

Yeh looks like a Blue Star juniper. Will take more than luck to recover from such defoliation while sick.
Did you mention which cultivar of mugo yours is?

The tag says Pinus Mugo var. Mugo.

 

[mgonz121]

View attachment 448561View attachment 448562View attachment 448564
A pic of the root ball before work, then after. I deviated slightly from Vance (shame, shame I know) in that I did start by digging down from the top then worked the bottom and sides with a chopstick just enough to fit it in the pond basket with some bonsai jack soil. The last picture are the handful of circling roots I cut. There was one very large root circling the trunk that I started with as it was eventually going to strangle the tree.

What is bonsai jack soil? And where do you get it or do you mix your own?

 

[MSU JBoots]

It’s a brand name. I bought it online. They have several mixes but I bought the 3.5 gallons of the organic mix.

 

[MSU JBoots]

My large mugo put out some good growth so I decided to give it a trim. I mostly thinned out the whorls to prevent any knuckles from swelling too badly. I think I decided on the future trunk line but still have plenty of time to think it through before committing. Here’s the before and after. I think I was pretty conservative with the pruning.

 

[MSU JBoots]

My smaller mugo I picked up early August last year did well after a fairly aggressive trim after the initial purchase. Here’s the tree when I bought it.

Here it was tonight before I went to work on it. Sorry that picture sucks. I was in a hurry to work the roots outside before it got dark.

Tonight I repotted it into some bonsai soil and gave it a very small prune to open the light up into the area I plan to be the future trunk line.

 

[MSU JBoots]

Both trees survived the repots and initial pruning. Per Vance’s outline I pruned them back again today. It doesn’t look like much but I did remove a good 30% of the foliage at least. Mostly still reducing the whorls but removed a few larger branches as well on both. Here’s the smaller one before and after.


I see the main trunk hopefully being the larger branch on the farthest right. I likely in hindsight should take off one side of the bar branch so it doesn’t get inverse taper there. Both trees are quite leggy since they were grown for nursery stock and very bushy. I’m hoping to get some back budding after these cut backs.

 

[MSU JBoots]

Here is the larger one before and after.


Below is a quick sketch of the next step. I’ll cut the right branch indicated by the red line since it’s far thicker than the future main trunk. There is another branch from the back that will likely be wired over to the right replace it. The future trunk is the one in the center and the yellow line is where I plan to reposition it with a guy wire so it will move up and to the right to follow the movement of the base.

 

[ponderingsage]

Looks like a good start. I have one at a similar stage, so will follow the thread closely. When do you plan to wire it out? This fall?