Dwarf Mugo pine question

dtree

Has anyone out there ever worked a dwarf mugo pine variety with successs ? If you have, do you have any experience you can relate ?

thanks,
dtree

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Alasdair

In my experience mugo's are relativly slow growers and a dwarf varietie of anything will grow even slower. This could make for it being a long term project and it may take a little longer to heal wounds.

Al

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wabashene

I'd agree with Alasdair.

My wife bought me a "Mops" or a "Humpty" I think. About 4 years back I pruned the "you know what" out of it and planted it in the ground.

Please note that almost every dwarf type pine will be grafted.

Lots of shoots extended and I have been cutting these back.

This weekend I lifted it, gave it another savage prune, trunk chopped it and re-planted. The severe pruning scars where I removed a branch whorl have just about healed

Actually looks like it's turning into something after 4 years and may make a shohin yet but only 6" tall max. I really only keep it for sentimental reasons and an hour's work a year isn't too large a price to pay.

:-)

I think the general consensus is that larger, standard mugo are preferable to grafted, dwarf cultivars. However, lot of the mugo nursery stock we see in the UK is multi stemmed, very shrubby and pretty useless for bonsai.

I refer you to Vance Wood's learned writings on the topic here

forum.bonsaitalk.com/showthread.php?t=9631&highlight=mugo+pine

TimR

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dtree

Thanks for your help, I have read everything V. Wood has posted on mugos, somewhere he says he has started to work dwarf mugos, but I haven't heard of any results.

rockm

In general, dwarf species are not very good for bonsai purposes. This may seem a litle counterintuitive, since you're looking to make the plant small and growth tight in bonsai.

But, since dwarf cultivars are slow growing, they are not nearly as responsive to pruning and shaping as faster growing "main" species. You can probably double or triple development time for a dwarf versus a non-dwarf cultivar. Branch thickening and trunk development, in particular, are a long time in coming. Starting with seedling dwarf cultivars is downright masochistic .

mistermoyogi

Vance Wood is coming into town to do a mugho pine workshop for our club this coming weekend...he has grown the species for many years and we are all looking forward to his presentation. Following, I would be glad to share what info. we have learned...personally, I have never worked with mughos and am really looking forward to learning about them.

Regards,
Tom Simonyi

dtree

Thanks, Tom, I appreciate that. Rockm, are there any dwarf varieties of any tree species that are good for bonsai ? I am just curious if there are any exceptions to that general rule.