Thanks Kez! Not quite as spectacular as your mugo, but I'll give it a shot. I really like the shape of this one. I plan to get a few more bends in there to add some more movement.
Why would be thinking of planting in the ground, from what I can see you already have a pretty decent trunk and branch structure. If you're going to repot, would personally put into a container and work on refining. Thinking about it, is it not better to repot as candles are opening?
Have you some other vision in mind?
Last edited by CraigM on October 21st, 2016, 4:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
From my understanding it is best to repot before pines put in any energy towards foliar growth. If they are directing all their energy towards healing/re-growing new roots the foliage and vigour in general will suffer dramatically and I have experienced this first hand.
The trunk isn't bad and has nice movement, but I don't feel it has what it takes to make a really nice bonsai in it's current state, particularly shohin. I agree, I achieved the beginnings of good branch structure, but may have to sacrifice this in view of more growth and thickening.
I haven't quite decided yet, but I will soon. The vision is basically one for the future and the future of my trees. I have just made a bed and planted around 30 conifers. This is a 5-10 year project and I can see this tree benefitting from a bit of field growing.
I have quite a substantial sacrifice branch located low on the back of the trunk. I has been left untrimmed and is probably nearly equal to the actual tree itself. I'm sure it's doing something, but not a lot that I can see. I've heard since I began training this for the comp that mugo pines are particularly slow. I do really like them though and I'm thinking a few years int he ground would do them some good.