Scots and Mugos Repotting Discussion

[Paradox]

Ive started a new thread about this here rather than post in MFray's collection thread and hijack it (sorry MFray). I think this is a worthy discussion.

Vance is the undeniable expert when it comes to Mugos in the U.S.. He promotes repotting both species in summer rather than spring. Based on his years of experience with both species, he has gotten much better survival and vigor repotting in summer opposed to spring.

In the other thread I made this statement:

I know Vance won't agree with this, but I did repot my big one (scots) that I've had for 5 years about a month ago. I know he would say July or August would be better but it was in a sand mix that stayed wet too long. I had to get it out of there after 4+ years. I just could not do it last year with the state of recovery the tree was in. The good news is the tree lived.

Vance replied:

I am not adverse to transplanting in spring, I am adverse to transplanting in Spring and then; complaining that the tree died and drawing the conclusion that they're hard to transplant.

Continued: Understood and I agree. There could have been a lot of factors to why it died. While I agree with you that Mugos and Scots can be repotted in the summer and may do best if repotted in the summer, Im not convinced that they absolutely can not be repotted in the spring. Ive spoken to Mark Comstock who grows trees in Connecticut and he repots all his mugos in spring. Gary Wood also repots scots in spring.

My big scots mentioned above has been repotted in the spring twice now. I purchased this tree in September 2011 and it was repotted in May 2012 and this year (April 2016). It is now in a lava, pumice, akadama and gravel mix. Here is some pic I took today, seems like it is doing fine. Sorry one is a bit blurry, it is raining and I was trying to keep my phone as dry as possible.




I have one mugo that is the first ever mugo and first ever pine I purchased. It is the second tree I every purchased for bonsai.
I bought it in September 2011 and I repotted it in May 2012. I absolutely brutalized the roots. At the time I was afraid I had done too much and the tree would die.
This tree has since gone through 2 more repots in the summer as I have changed my soil mix over that time. The last time it was repotted was last summer in July.
It had a really bad scale infestation in September last year and someone else (who will remain nameless at this point) on this forum has predicted that the tree will be dead in less than 2 years at this point.
So far it looks pretty good, and I hope to prove that person wrong.
Here is a pic taken today.


All of my other mugos have been repotted in summer.

This one in July/August 2014 (again sorry for the blurry pic).
This one will probably get repotted this year because it is in the last of the sand/gravel mix that I had been using before going to a lava, pumice and gravel mix.


and this one last July


This one had its first styling last year and will be repotted this summer. Ive had great success repotting mugos in the summer and will continue that practice.

 

[GrimLore]

The plants look good and thank you for the information. I bought my first Mugo this year and plan on trying some pines for the first time as well. Tidbits like this, well documented and explained from experience are a great resource

Grimmy

 

[petegreg]

Nice piece of info. @Paradox , comparing spring and summer repots, can you say it was done with the same workload? I mean the trees repotted from... soil to...soil, root reduction...

This spring I repotted three nursery mugo pines applying HBR repot with some root reduction. So far they're fine, growing without the sign of weakening. Plus one Watereri scots pine repotted to the first bonsai pot.

I've got one more mugo in nursery soil I'm going to repot in july for the first time. I'm not sure if HBR repot can be done in summer, will see.

Summer repotting works for mugos (proved by many here) and should work for scots pines, I collect Scots pines in summer. But on the repotting topic - I will wait for others experiences, how
much root works can be done...

note: HVM lost his beautiful yamadori mugo pine and he suspects it's first summer repotting. So there can be different approach in case of collected trees vs container grown trees.

 

[dirk hoorelbeke]

My vision is that there are to many variables influencing with the factor of good or bad response after a repot. It might be that the person with success in summer will be successful in spring because of the way they repot. In our part of the world there are no professionals that i know of repotting in summer. But it is to difficult to conduct a randomized controlled trial on this matter. I suppose both can be done. And some will have bad experiences in spring and others in summer. People remember there losses and adjust their timing accordingly.

 

[Paradox]

@petegreg

As I stated before. The first mugo I posted was repotted the very first time in spring. I really removed too many roots but it survived and is still kicking. Did I just get lucky with a very strong tree? Who knows.

When that tree was repotted the subsequent times, I dont recall exactly but I dont think I would have disturbed the roots too much. The sand mix it was in does not promote good root growth generally, at least not as much as the larger particle sized lava, pumice and gravel mix.

The scots pine that I posted had very little roots the first time I repotted it in 2012. Seriously I was amazed at how little roots it did have. Four years later, it has more roots but still not a lot and I did very little to them during this year's repot. The goal was just to get it into better soil. The tree is healthy but not as vigorous as I would like, probably because of the issues it had last year. The goal for this year it to feed it heavily and get it growing with a bit more spunk than you see in the pics here.

 

[petegreg]

Thank you. To specify why I did repot those three mugos in spring - they all come from the arboretum and were in pretty heavy and soggy soil and I don't have good experiences with this. The fourth mugo come from different nursery and the soil is black, but drying fast. So I can afford to wait and try summer repotting.

Something more - those HBR repotted + two JBPs seem not to have any watering related problems due to two different types of soil. If they spend next winter well I will probably put off the second HBR session and start working with the trees (pruning, wiring...). Will keep this updated in my JBP thread.

 

[steve27]

Just a note:I repotted my mugo in the summer of last year,and withen a few weeks it turn brown and died. I thought i did everthng right
included after care.
maybe there were other things going on with it dont know for sure. just my 2 cents

 

[Jester217300]

I agree with you, @Paradox. Colin Lewis also repots all of his mugo bonsai in spring.

I only have one mugo so far and I plan to repot it next spring. It seems to me, at a minimum, that they can be repotted in spring or summer. I'm not convinced either is better than the other. So I'm choosing to try spring first. My local nursery also repots mugo in spring.

There are so many factors to repotting it's hard to draw a conclusion without watching several people in practice in person. After care is so important, as is soil choice and fertilizer choice and schedule. IMO, there are too many variables involved to say one way is better than the other. I'd prefer to keep the tree on the same schedule as my other hardy trees. If I kill it I'm glad for the learning experience.

Here's a pic of mine from a few weeks ago. It's mostly in "as received" condition. The only thing I've done is start to reduce the branching whorl. When I repot next spring I'll tackle the circling roots and get it into my lava and pumice mix.

 

[RickMartin]

Ill stick with the summer..ive tried spring and that didnt go so well. I asked Vance and read all the threads and summer seems to be the way to go. If hes going to take rhe time to answer and help me through it, he deserves the respect to wait a couple more months, and im pretty sure this one will live.

Rick

 

[Paradox]

Just to make it clear, I am in no way going against what Vance has said with regard to repotting mugo pines.

I do firmly believe they can be repotted in summer. All of my mugos but one have been repotted in summer. Again, maybe I just got lucky with that one.

It may also be that in Michigan, repotting in summer is better due to the late springs where snow in May is a real possibility.

The reason, I think this is because the tree has such a short growth period before the heat of summer, repotting in spring may be too much to allow for vigorous spring growth needed before the summer heat and cause the decline that Vance has witnessed so often.

Repotting in summer may allow the mugo to put on good spring growth before the semi-dormancy in the hottest time if the summer.

There are people in milder climates that do repot in spring with no issues so I do think that they can be repotted in spring in some cases.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

I will be watching with great interest.

 

[RickMartin]

Down in Texas its pretty hot but very humid. So for this little mugo has shown no signs of distress. I wasnt refering that you were going against Vance in any way..i have listened to what he says on his vids and here. He has helped me more than he actually knows just by reading his material.

Rick

 

[Paradox]

I will be watching with great interest.

I hope it doesnt get too interesting......thats not what I intended when I started this discussion....

 

[Paradox]

. He has helped me more than he actually knows just by reading his material.

Rick

He has helped many of us here and I hope he doesnt get offended by this thread.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

I hope it doesnt get too interesting......thats not what I intended when I started this discussion....

Actually, I'm more interested to see how a Summer repot works out in San Antonio TX.

 

[LanceMac10]

Ill stick with the summer..ive tried spring and that didnt go so well. I asked Vance and read all the threads and summer seems to be the way to go. If hes going to take rhe time to answer and help me through it, he deserves the respect to wait a couple more months, and im pretty sure this one will live.

Rick

Where you in Michigan up until a couple months ago?

 

[LanceMac10]

I hope it doesnt get too interesting......thats not what I intended when I started this discussion....

Sounds like you have tree you don't know what to do with.

 

[Paradox]

Sounds like you have tree you don't know what to do with.

Err....?

 

[Potawatomi13]

A couple of interesting trees you have to work with. Nice trunk on your Scots. Curious what you did to treat your scale problem?

 

[sorce]

@Vance Wood ....
Just for clarification.

As I understand....
You're repotting is from
Nursery pots to Baskets..
Baskets to Baskets?
Baskets to Bonsai Pots.
And Bonsai Pots to Bonsai Pots.

These are all quite different situations.

Maybe some notes on each?
___

Semi related.

While Mugo is obviously ok in cold and freezing.......
They ARE being unnaturally kept.

I wonder if winter protection situations make success stories different.

If they are kept above freezing temps...
Is a spring repot more/equally successful?

I would figure basket to basket would be a optimal spring repot situation due to basket vigor.

Where, B Pot to B Pot may be less successful and best done after vigor is regained through growing some.
Also N pot to basket, due to the more drastic root work done then.

I think this thread will serve us better if we note what situation....as listed above...the amount of root work, soil change, winter protect situation etc.

I would also love to know what phase the moon was in during these repots.

The app I have allows you to go back and see what phase the moon was in back to at least 1969, probly much further...
Pictures or notes could give you dates to reference when you did it.

I am aiming to N pot to basket mine the first Waning moon after Fathers day.
I've noticed the most root growth out of baskets on a moon 19-26 days old, which will be around 6/25, I will further adjust in that period according to rain, as in, repotting before the most rainy days as possible. So humidity is kept up.

Sorce