Advice on mugo pine styling

[konn]

How would you style this mugo? My first thought when I bought it was to keep the thick trunk/branch (blue arrow) and possibly make a first branch at the red arrow. But the branches at the red arrow have interesting movement and provide taper, while the thick branch at the blue arrow is quite straight and has some not so nice scars of small branches that I have removed.

 

[Calnicky]

Hey Konn,

I was looking for threads on styling a mugo pine and came across yours. Sorry no one has chimed in with advice. I got my mugo from an auction years ago as a root-over-rock. I like that part but the rest of the tree always just looked like an octopus. After staring at it for for a while yesterday I suddenly "saw the tree"! It's a bit too early here to start lopping off big branches, but in July I think I'll take off a few and try clip back to buds. Since I didn't love the tree, I didn't keep up with maintenance as I should have.

So my advice would be keep staring at your tree until you "see the tree" and then pay attention to the time of year that's best for you to work on pruning, candling, needle plucking (or not on a mugo), etc.

Here's the Tree in June 2022 (first photo) and then again on June 7, 2024 (2 photos - with discovery of new trunk and slightly changed planting angle. Will post more as I work on the tree.

.

 

[konn]

Nice tree! Nice curvy line, I am sure it will look very interesting after some pruning. Yes please post more!
I am still just looking at mine, trying to "see the tree" I guess. Meanwhile I am dealing with some needle cast. Pretty nasty fangus, already killed one other mugo I had.
Thanks for your reply!

 

[Paradox]

@konn
Sorry I missed this when you posted.
I agree with your assessment of the tree.
You could use the larger (blue arrow) trunk as a sacrifice branch to grow the trunk bigger and keep the other one to develop your tree.

 

[Calnicky]

I agree with @Paradox at the moment but you might wait until you've repotted out of the nursery pot and seen what the nebari offers. I follow Harry Harrington's (@bonsai4me) advice on when to report pines - late summer/early fall. My climate is similar to southern England, but when to report might differ in your climate.