my new nursery mugo

local garden center clearing them out for $30... but its a bit of a crap-shoot as they have been buried for so long and they were pretty packed together that exploring the trunks was by feel only and even then just an inch or two between the duff/soil and the branching...

and the guy said if we dig one up i gotta take it

did the best i could at trunk braille and i may have done OK...

obvious vim & vigor







after a bit of clean up and minor branch removal i can start to see something very promising in there...





takes two hands to encircle that trunk...

cant wait to open it up more for a better look-see but that will wait until next season...
for now it is just re-burlapped and buried in the garden

Way to go Kevin!
Scrabbling in the dirt on your knees is the proper way to look at mugo pines. Most times you need to be able to see with your fingers. I think your fingers may have good vision.
That is a juicy base and there may be more under the soil too. The hard part is being able to pick your trunk line out of all of those branches.
Good find!

Great to see you experimenting Kevin!!

Now do we shout for Super Vance ?

Had a Mugo years ago, as a Christmas tree in Florence, great memories.
Please keep showing as you grow it.
Laters.
Khaimraj

thanks guys...

mike - the 3rd and last pics show best what i am seeing so far in direction...
there is alot of movement going from right to left and up into the canopy...
but we will see better next season and i will update then...

Great find, you now have your ticket to the mugo train.

Leo Schordje wrote:Great find, you now have your ticket to the mugo train.

AAAAALLLL ABOARD !!!
there be plenty more where that one came from...

Looks like a good start, Kevin!
It will cause some headache though

my nellie wrote:It will cause some headache though

only if i let it

but having said that, what do you mean ?

I mainly refer to branch selection (looking at picture nr. 4)

this one ?



luckily that seems to be the side that will be not so much in the final flow...
at least from what i was able to see so far.

That's the problem most people have with these trees. All of the branches and thinking they will or should be using them. Actually most are going to end up having to be gone.
The first and hardest part of getting a mugo pine is to define the trunkline. Then cutting all of the rest of the branches off.
Kevin will have to end up over time cutting 75% or more of those branches off. It takes a little vision to work with these trees. You need to envision what it will be not what it is.
Once the trunkline is defined and grown out some then he will have to force it to back bud for branching. The wonderful thing about mugo pines is they have the ability to back bud on old wood. Scots pines are another. And the techniques used to accomplish this are the same for both.
These trees don't happen overnight. But then again patience in bonsai is a prerequisite.

yep... already planning on most of what there is to be gone initially...
which will lead to a question i do have for the mugo train thread

Well, that one's got a lot of potential !

The problem is, where is the "trunk line" ?...

Because whatever, realistic, classistic, sarcastic, modernistic, burtonistic, elastic, etc. you will have to decide what to keep and what to get rid of and that's a big question (much more important than to try and answer the first part of this sentence, which was blatant provocation, sorry )

There are dozens of branches there, maybe you could keep only half-a-dozen... a hard decision to make, but it's either you want a topiary or try bonsaï, don't you think so ?...

Sorry, but I think that with this tree, it will be very difficult to make a choice in the lot of the branches without jeopardizing the life of the tree, if it was my tree, I would plant it in my garden.

alain - the trunk line is short and visible in person but not very photographicable...

abcdefg - difficult ? maybe...
what is more difficult, but quite astounding, is your ability to make such an assessment based on a few photos...  
i wish i had such keen insight !

abcd wrote:(...) if it was my tree, I would plant it in my garden.

So what?

Postpone the decision to select the branches until you need a saw to prune them?

Make it bigger because big is beautiful?

Imagination, taking risks, and being yourself is much better in my opinion than yielding to "Oh, this is not a yamadori, it's useless working on it, throw it to the compopst pile!".

abcd wrote:Sorry, but I think that with this tree, it will be very difficult to make a choice in the lot of the branches without jeopardizing the life of the tree, if it was my tree, I would plant it in my garden.

This where most people give up on mugo pine. Like I said before,these trees take time and forethought.
But you can cut quite a lot off when the tree is healthy. Half or more of the branches can go at once.

M. Frary wrote:... ...Kevin will have to end up over time cutting 75% or more of those branches off. It takes a little vision to work with these trees. You need to envision what it will be not what it is... ...
But you can cut quite a lot off when the tree is healthy. Half or more of the branches can go at once.

I understand what you are saying. It takes a little vision of course but on the other hand one has also to take some risk, like Alain has said.
This past weekend we were having a seminar with guest instructor Mr. Alfredo Sallacione from Italy. I had with me one nursery mugo pine, a tree smaller than Kevin's. I would like to make something like the quasi raft of Mr. V. Wood but at the end we decided that my tree would fit better to be a semi cascade form, shohin size. It is a healthy tree with lots of mycorrhizal fungi. We have cut almost 85-90% of its branches and have removed two years' needles. No wiring.
I am keeping it protected for the time being and I hope it will recover the stress.
Good luck with yours Kevin!

B&B Mugos can be very rewarding and frustrating and difficult.  Mostly it is the huge clay ball they seem to be planted in.  So---You put this one back in the ground, it might be better to have made a large box with screen windows in the sides and bottom.  It's obviously too big for a colander and if you have to build a box as some are known to do for collected trees a box that has windows cut into the sides and bottom covered with window screen will give you much better service than just plopping it into the ground.  A project for a couple of years from now.  For next year you can start reducing branches and deciding what the tree really looks like.

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Finally I got the image to post. Any way this is a 1988 shot of a Mugo I started working on in 1988. What happens with this tree is probably as much a record of my development as a self taught artist as it is a record of the tree.

In 1994 I think I had developed this Mugo as far as it could go with the trunk configuration it had.  Essentially the tree was conflicted, and something had to change.

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The tree had won many awards in this form but I knew it was not as good as it should be and would never be anything worthy of anything more than local shows.

1996 awards first place and best in show.

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So I set out to do something I had thought about for not less than a couple of years.  I felt like a young swimmer contemplating jumping of the high board for the first time.  After all a venture like this could kill the tree at the worst and if it did survive make it into a design that will take many years to fill in.

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So I changed the front cut the left side of the tree off and prayed.

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This is the image as it is more or less today.  I have not shot any current photos as of this season but they are soon to follow.  

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Photo shot in 2013 during a resting year.

my nellie wrote:

M. Frary wrote:... ...Kevin will have to end up over time cutting 75% or more of those branches off. It takes a little vision to work with these trees. You need to envision what it will be not what it is... ...
But you can cut quite a lot off when the tree is healthy. Half or more of the branches can go at once.

I understand what you are saying. It takes a little vision of course but on the other hand one has also to take some risk, like Alain has said.
This past weekend we were having a seminar with guest instructor Mr. Alfredo Sallacione from Italy. I had with me one nursery mugo pine, a tree smaller than Kevin's. I would like to make something like the quasi raft of Mr. V. Wood but at the end we decided that my tree would fit better to be a semi cascade form, shohin size. It is a healthy tree with lots of mycorrhizal fungi. We have cut almost 85-90% of its branches and have removed two years' needles. No wiring.
I am keeping it protected for the time being and I hope it will recover the stress.
Good luck with yours Kevin!

I've seen the quasi raft in person a couple times. It is my favorite tree of all time. Seeing it in person is a whole different experience than seeing it in a picture.
I said somewhere else before that I would maim someone to own it. Offer is still on the table.

Mike: I'm most surely not going to live for ever and I don't plan on the tree declining because I do, so don't give up.

so vance - you say putting it in a box would be something for a couple years from now, but i can start branch removal next season...

i cannot keep it where i plopped it in the garden for more than this winter and spring.

it is extremely vigorous seeming and as with alexandra's, it had evidence of an abundance of michrorizal (sp?) fungi.
i am also lucky that the root ball did not seem to have much clay to it...

after the 2016 summer solstice, and if i can avoid tooooo much root work, do you reckon i would be safe getting it into a box or large pot and then proceed with some branch removal (no more than half) for the 2016 season ?

(i wanted to pose that question in the mugo train thread, but after the replies to this thread, i kept it here)