Compact Dwarf mugo JIN

[BrightsideB]

Hello all!
I picked up this dwarf mugo several months ago after constantly seeing it at a nursery for a year. The style finally came to me so I started trimming. I uploaded a photo the red is live and the blue is dead for it’s future style. Not well drawn but gets the point across.My plan of attack is to root prune and repot into a pot half the size in early spring. I am thinking of wiring what will in the future be Jin to give it some movement and maybe grow the branches out for several years to thicken them while I style what will be living branches in the future.
I was just curious about what the some of you thought about this approach and the tree? It has a very bad reverse taper in the back. One reason why I am wanting to Jin it to give it more uniform flow.

 

[Pj86]

I would wait until repot to see how the nebari looks. From there your design will be dependent on the nebari.

The mugo you have appears to be a grafted mugo ‘mops’. I cannot see a graft line which means that the nebari is most likely a few inches down the surface of the pot. I would not be surprised that half of the pot is covering the remainder of the trunk.

here is a similar mugo I got last year.

 

[BrightsideB]

I would wait until repot to see how the nebari looks. From there your design will be dependent on the nebari.

The mugo you have appears to be a grafted mugo ‘mops’. I cannot see a graft line which means that the nebari is most likely a few inches down the surface of the pot. I would not be surprised that half of the pot is covering the remainder of the trunk.

here is a similar mugo I got last year.

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The graft on yours looks pretty good. Yeah you are right.
When I find the tag I’ll find out the exact cultivar. I forget these nebaris are really buried. I would repot now I just don’t want to cause to much stress. In the past when I repot and prune at once it seems to put the health back. Usually I do some pruning to reduce the load on the roots for the future repot. Just a theory I work with.

 

[BrightsideB]

I ended up creating the large Jin today. I also applied lime sulphur after cleaning it up a little better. We’ll see if it lives for some root pruning this spring. I want to end up creating Shari to connect the jin in the future.

 

[Potawatomi13]

Doing major/moderate root work Spring after removing so much green not such great idea. Much wiser waiting till 2023 after tree grows well/recovers. Could cut pot down to soil level then clean to level of main surface roots removing roots above that level while still in nursery pot.

 

[BrightsideB]

Doing major/moderate root work Spring after removing so much green not such great idea. Much wiser waiting till 2023 after tree grows well/recovers. Could cut pot down to soil level then clean to level of main surface roots removing roots above that level while still in nursery pot.

I appreciate the advice. My concern is that this tree is well becoming root bound. I already lost a tree waiting once the following year. Sometimes I can be inpatient lol. I understand why w people do repotting as a next step with nursery material.

 

[Potawatomi13]

Better somewhat root bound than dead. Work done already will encourage new root growth. Curbing impatience primary lesson to learn. Too busy fingers kill too many trees.