Dutch bonsai chef’s Vance Wood memorial mugo contest entry

[Dutch bonsai chef]

Picked up this mugo ‘gnom’ (last one left) from a local garden center earlier this week. Needles seem pretty big but I hope I’ll be able to reduce them.

Reduced the whorls of branches I didn’t need. Maybe I did… repotted it today in a net pot using Vance Wood’s method. I tried to limit myself to a branch reduction of 50% but my math might have abandoned me.

One thing I seem not to understand is the reduction of whorls. If you reduce a whorl down to two branches, do you reduce to e.g. One left and right/back (or any combination) or to one branch and the trunk (counting the trunk as a branch)?


Also made some sketches of possible designs if it survives. Might need to learn how to do grafts given the amount of branches I’ve lost in my excitement.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I count the trunk as a branch when reducing whorls to two.
But that can mean sometimes that the trunk comes off and I'm using two smaller branches to rebuild the trunk and a side branch.

 

[Dutch bonsai chef]

I count the trunk as a branch when reducing whorls to two.
But that can mean sometimes that the trunk comes off and I'm using two smaller branches to rebuild the trunk and a side branch.

Oke thanks then I did understand it right. I’m planning on reducing the trunk next year so I can use the 2nd branch or one of the upper branches as the new leader.