Nursery Mugo

I have been working on the nursery Mugo since 1972 when I ran across it Franks Nursery in a 3 gallon nursery container. It has only been in the last few years I started to find ways to redesign the tree which I had become bored of.  So Many of you on this forum have the good fortune to get your hands on the Yamadori of this tree I thought you might like to see the way we have to deal with the tree in America.

it's a long way to Tipperary ;-)

...But very nice to see a mugo in training for so long. Do you have a Photo from the early days?

cheers

Loke Emil wrote:it's a long way to Tipperary ;-)

...But very nice to see a mugo in training for so long. Do you have a Photo from the early days?

cheers

Not the earliest days but I think I have some that go back maybe twenty years, but I will have to dig them out and upload them.

Some of the earliest photos are 35mm and poor quality; they that upload poorly.  If I can dig them out I might post a few latter on.  For now I will post a series of photos starting from 1999 and again in 2001 when I finally decided this tree was as good as it could get in its current form which was totally conflicted; like two styles struggling with each other.

The cuts were drastic and unrecoverable if they failed.  Here are three faces of the first cut back in 07.  The conflict has been resolved and the adventure to regorw the tree begins.

That's a handsome looking tree!

Todd Ellis wrote:That's a handsome looking tree!

Thank you very much.  

Sometimes I wish someone with better hands and better ideas had taken it up, but in all probability someone with those qualifications would not have given it a second thought all those years ago.  Doing Mugos from nursery material is nothing like going after Yamadori.  Yamadori straight up tell you that you have a tree that is worth the effort, a nursery tree gives you a maybe.  With a Yamadori you are dealing with getting the tree to conform to growing in a container and develop new roots.  With a nursery tree you are trying to undo the things the nursery trade as done to the tree which means you are reducing the tree and reducing the root mass to go into a pot.  Any of you that are into Mugos, I believe would not be so;  if it were not for the wonderful foliage, and the trees ability to reduce the foliage.  You cannot compare the foliage of a JBP to a Mugo pine in my opinion.  You can bad mouth a Mugo for a host of reasons but that is not one of them.

Often your efforts are more like making your own Pre-Bonsai; waiting for that to mature, then taking the result of that endeavor and starting to make a bonsai.  It's like growing from seed side-ways.  The most common thing I find I have to do is cut the tree down in stages as much as 60%.  Often nursery Mugos have so many more branches than they need it becomes daunting to determine which to keep and which to remove.  It really boils down to what inside of that mess of growth is capable of becoming a first rate bonsai.  The essence of that exercise is often making a choice simply on the size and configuration of the trunk. Many of you may comment that "Nursery Mugos don't have trunks." There you are wrong, you just have to train yourself how to look for them, an exercise many will not participate in. Lastly outside of styling, the roots demand as much or more attention while regrowing them to have a much finer structure.  Often the entire root system has to be replenished.

Very inspiring Vance. It must have been hard to cut away so much and pursue a new style.risky, but it worked out well. I bet with the downward needles removed it looks even better.

KennedyMarx wrote:Very inspiring Vance. It must have been hard to cut away so much and pursue a new style.risky, but it worked out well. I bet with the downward needles removed it looks even better.

The tree had a serious set back this winter; in short I almost lost it due to some sort of fungus that got at it. Its coming back strong but it will probably take two years to attain its former glory.

The tree had a serious set back this winter; in short I almost lost it due to some sort of fungus that got at it.  Its coming back strong but it will probably take two years to attain its former glory.  This is the way it looked last summer.  I had just got home from the marathon of cleaning up my mother in laws affairs and had no time to detail the tree correctly.