Hyn Patty
Shohin
All right, here goes. While I dabbled in bonsai about 25 years ago, I barely got a collection going before I lost it in a nasty hail storm. Haven't really tried to be serious about bonsai since, but would really like to get back to trying. I've forgotten a lot of what I had learned so I suppose I'm really starting over. Just as well so I can learn better habits. So I went out and picked up three plants at my local Pikes a couple of days ago - and here's the first one. I should have gotten a photo of it before I started, drat. The other two are junipers and I can post them elsewhere when I have time to work on them.
This is Mugo pine 'Teeny' which grows around 1" per year (sometimes a little more) and up to about 10 to 12 inches in mature height. It is currently 4 inches tall and about 6 inches wide. I selected this one because it had a nice forked trunk and many clean, fairly well balanced branches. I did prune off a couple of branches but not much. I haven't wired anything in many years (except for a few adeniums recently) and I'm way out of practice. I know I should be using copper wire but as we are in the process of relocation from one house to another, everything is in storage, so I picked up some aluminum wire for now.
I want to accentuate the twin trunk and open the tree up by using the wiring to spread and lower branches. On one side I have positioned the apex as the highest point and centered it over the angled trunk, and on the other side I have tugged everything over to lower it into an almost semi-cascade feel. Being a mountain tree, I hope it'll be happy at our new mountain cabin we are relocating to later this spring at 4,000 feet elevation in NC. I'd like to get hold of some thin copper wire to help turn some of the tips more upwards on the lower branches. I've begun to pinch back some of the candles, some of them out (if there were three or more in a single tip) and some of them about 2/3rds to try and encourage short, dense needles. I've never done this pinching before on an evergreen so advice welcome.
Besides that, my goals are to learn to wire better and encourage back buds. I have always loved mugo pines but I never really got a chance to do one as a bonsai. I need to learn a lot about them and I have been directed to Vance Wood's posts collected in this tutorial: https://www.bonsainut.com/resources/compiled-vance-wood-on-mugo-pines.23/
Long term I'd like to eventually mount this small mugo on a rock so the lowest branches won't be close to the pot and soil. I'm not sure that I will get that far in only four years. According to Vance's posts I should keep it in the larger pot for a while to thicken up the trunk and mature the bark so that's what I will do first. Over time I want one side to get higher and keep the other lower. Thicken the trunk and maybe scar some of the bark, stripping a few branches for jin. But I won't try any of that for a while.
I did post these photos in a mugo pine thread so I hope that's all right.
This is Mugo pine 'Teeny' which grows around 1" per year (sometimes a little more) and up to about 10 to 12 inches in mature height. It is currently 4 inches tall and about 6 inches wide. I selected this one because it had a nice forked trunk and many clean, fairly well balanced branches. I did prune off a couple of branches but not much. I haven't wired anything in many years (except for a few adeniums recently) and I'm way out of practice. I know I should be using copper wire but as we are in the process of relocation from one house to another, everything is in storage, so I picked up some aluminum wire for now.
I want to accentuate the twin trunk and open the tree up by using the wiring to spread and lower branches. On one side I have positioned the apex as the highest point and centered it over the angled trunk, and on the other side I have tugged everything over to lower it into an almost semi-cascade feel. Being a mountain tree, I hope it'll be happy at our new mountain cabin we are relocating to later this spring at 4,000 feet elevation in NC. I'd like to get hold of some thin copper wire to help turn some of the tips more upwards on the lower branches. I've begun to pinch back some of the candles, some of them out (if there were three or more in a single tip) and some of them about 2/3rds to try and encourage short, dense needles. I've never done this pinching before on an evergreen so advice welcome.
Besides that, my goals are to learn to wire better and encourage back buds. I have always loved mugo pines but I never really got a chance to do one as a bonsai. I need to learn a lot about them and I have been directed to Vance Wood's posts collected in this tutorial: https://www.bonsainut.com/resources/compiled-vance-wood-on-mugo-pines.23/
Long term I'd like to eventually mount this small mugo on a rock so the lowest branches won't be close to the pot and soil. I'm not sure that I will get that far in only four years. According to Vance's posts I should keep it in the larger pot for a while to thicken up the trunk and mature the bark so that's what I will do first. Over time I want one side to get higher and keep the other lower. Thicken the trunk and maybe scar some of the bark, stripping a few branches for jin. But I won't try any of that for a while.
I did post these photos in a mugo pine thread so I hope that's all right.
