Likebull1's Vance Wood Memorial Mugo

[Likebull1]

I picked up this large Mugo today after searching around for weeks. It's funny because I stopped my my local nursery to waste time and I found the perfect specimen. I personally have never seen such a fat trunk on a Mugo before.
It might be hard to grow out the main branches to catch up but let's see what happens in four years!




Check out how chunky this guy is!


I picked off all the dead needles. It seems like it had a small amount of scorching on one side maybe?

After that I took off a little more than 40% of the foliage. It was very difficult for me to see the "little tree" inside but I didn't hack away and I left a couple options open.

Naturally I'm leaving the largest branch facing the front left.

Here is what I'm left with afterwards.

 

[Likebull1]

Next I started on repotting the tree. Funny enough the bottom third of the pot was loose soil and the roots freed themselves extremely easily.

This was before I removed any soil/roots. It's interesting how you can see how dry the middle section is.



I removed less than half of the root mass and it untangled surprisingly easily. I tried to leave as much of its own soil as possible.

Now here's that part that either makes me an idiot or a genius...

It turns out I did not have a pond basket large enough for this tree even though I swore I did. Well...I did have the nursery pot the tree came in and I also have a knife and a Dremel.
I cut the pot in half horizontally and took my smallest carving bit to make about 500 holes all over the sides and bottom of the pot and then filled in the larger drainage holes with mesh.
(Please dont laugh)
I gave it a good watering and now I'll be patiently waiting. Funny enough I didn't snap a picture of the tree after trimming so I'll throw one up here tomorrow afternoon.

 

[stubmle]

Please dont laugh

If it's stupid and it works... it's not stupid!

Based on the disposition of the roots and soil (i.e., not horribly root-bound), I'd guess this wasn't in that pot for a terribly long time before you got it- more than a year, but not much more. You may find that the interior core is much denser and more congested (this is the case on 2 of my Mugos). You might want to stick a chopstick into the core (and i mean DEEP in there, directly under the trunk!) after you water to check that water is reaching the center- dry core and wet exterior can be very bad if undetected for too long.

I really like the fat base on this- reminds me of a turtleback! Though I am curious if it's actually a huge knuckle, and there is more trunk underground... did you feel around under the soil at the base?

Altogether a really nice tree! Can't wait to see what you do with it.

 

[Likebull1]

Thanks a bunch for the kind words!

It's fun you mention it being in the pot for around one year, maybe a little more. I thought the exact same thing. I figured the root ball would be an absolute mess but it was anything but that.
I gave the whole mass a big shake and everything came loose and the roots weren't even really tangled. Out of the hundreds of threes I've repotted from nursery stock this one had to be the easiest.
I was almost concerned that I lost too much of the original soil.

And about the base. I had no idea what is going on there lol. It's actually even wider than what's shown in the pictures. I didn't want to disturb the roots around it too much but it extends out about an inch or more on each side under the soil.
Funny part is when I stuck a skewer through the bottom towards the middle it didn't extend much further.
Since the roots were so loose I decided to poke my finger up there and again, flat. I haven't worked with to many Mugos but this is definitely one of the most unusual ones I've encountered.

Thankfully everything is loosened up and I checked earlier today to see if the middle was moist and it absolutely was.

I hope I can get a little more mass on that left branch section to give it better proportion but that might take a little more than four years lol!
Let's hope we keep up momentum and decide to extend it on to an eight year contest!

 

[Likebull1]

Since I can't touch this one until next year I figured a take a couple more pictures as promised.
The tree is doing great and only dropped a few needles since I did a repot and heavy prune.
I'm having a hard time figuring out the future of the tree because the trunk is so massive compared to the branches but luckily I have plenty of time to figure that out.

Hope everyone else's are doing well.

 

[Likebull1]

Might seem like a minor victory to some but it's a huge one for me! I have a bud!!!!! It's just nice to see that it's not only healthy but prospering.

 

[Likebull1]

*Update time*

So I forgot to mention some updates I did last year.
A week or so after my initial repot I felt like I didn't reduce the root mass nearly enough. I know it was a risk but I figured why the hell not.

I got the tree to fit in a much smaller pond basket which proved to be successful. The tree has a decent amount of back budding and seems to be thriving.

I had to overwinter on my back deck because I rent and don't have a garage. I decided to throw the pond basket into a larger container and surround it with a finer mulchy substrate.

I took off a few smaller branches and moved some of the wire a little bit.

I'll likely take the tree out of the larger container this week since things are starting to warm up.

For the most part I'll likely leave this tree alone minus some minor needle selection in the summer.

Time to feed heavy and wait. Overall I'm pretty happy how its coming along.