AusBonsai

Popped over to Bonsai South Nursery on the weekend, and a $12 Mugo Pine caught my eye. I've never tried a pine before, for some reason I've always seen them as daunting- bonsai subjects for professionals, not for novices like me! Anyway, I really liked the look of this little tree so I got him. I like the natural structure of it and for the time being don't want to do too much except repot it and work on getting the needles shorter.
My question is about repotting.The lady at the nursery said to wait until winter to pot it, whereas reading just now in Peter Chan's book he says 'the best time to repot is in mid spring, and the best time to wire pines is in the autumn'.

So, which advice do you reckon I should go with? I'll wait til winter if that's best, but if mid spring is good, I'd love to repot it now and see what the roots are like. Any advice on that or on the candle pinching stuff would be much appreciated. Thanks!

O.K.. so Peter chans advice would be for England where he lives, so take the Australian advice.

Oh of course. Thanks Bodhi, that makes sense. i'll wait.

If you are slip potting it, you can do this anytime of year as long there is minimum to no root work done or disturbance.

Being a young Mugo I'd say go for it ^^

The Specimen wrote:Being a young Mugo I'd say go for it

slip potting you mean

absolutely Bodhi!

There are more important things than needle length to focus on at the moment. Don't worry about that until you are refining the tree... Get it's structure before worrying about that.

NathanM wrote:There are more important things than needle length to focus on at the moment. Don't worry about that until you are refining the tree... Get it's structure before worrying about that.

Yes. And before structure comes mass.

Cheers,
Mojo

Mojo Moyogi wrote:

NathanM wrote:There are more important things than needle length to focus on at the moment. Don't worry about that until you are refining the tree... Get it's structure before worrying about that.

Yes. And before structure comes mass.

Cheers,
Mojo

Well that depends on the overall size that you want the tree to be.
You can somewhat work on structure, basic structure, while building mass

I think since you were at bonsai south and had seen Leon's pines, I would go back there and take his advice and buy his book "pine bonsai in the temperate climate"

The best time to repot mugo is now !!! I have been waiting patiently watching the candles move to do mine and Specimen's. Any day now Speci !!!

anttal63 wrote:The best time to repot mugo is now !!! I have been waiting patiently watching the candles move to do mine and Specimen's. Any day now Speci !!!

Interesting, my candles have been out for ages and have to repot mine in September.

Thanks everyone for your oppinions. Seems like there's a couple of differing views there..

My inspiration are two particular trees from books , that I've long admired.. there's a Mugo Pine in Peter Adams The Art of Bonsai, and that tree popped into my head when I saw this little Mugo the other day. There's also a pine, not sure if its' Mugo, an old collected one in the back of Herb Gustaffsens' Bonsai Workshop. Can't find pix on the net, but they are both clumpy, natural looking sorts of trees. That's the vibe I want to go for with this.

What about wiring then? Would it be possible for me to wire some branches at this time?

Thanks again everyone for the input.