AusBonsai

This is an old mugo pine I came upon last spring. It was in good health but the short needles and lack of new buds told me it needed some vigour before any work could be done on it. In the past 12 months I have been increasing the food I give to it and it has responded wih healthy buds and even some back budding starting to show. I decided that in order to increase the chances of more back budding I needed to get some more light into it. I took out roughly 1/3 of the foliage, only on areas that had three branches from one point and anything that I felt was growing on an awkward angle to work with in the future. As you can see this has allowed a lot more light to penetrate into the tree which should with give me more backbudding and also promote stronger growth on the remaining foliage.

I will now look to slip pot this tree and hopefully work on it with Hiro in 2012 if it is vigourous enough.

Before work


Before from below - You can see the old short weaker needles and last years stronger longer needles



After the work was completed

Great looking Mugo Jarrod, nice work with the cleanup aswell, keep us posted Cheers mate

Hey Jarrod

Bloody nice tree mate. I love Mugo but they won't survive here for more than 3 or 4 years in past experience.

Look forward to seeing this one come along. Definitely needed the clean out. Would love to have a tree like that come along to workshop.

Tony

Thanks for the replies, Tony, I just need to work on the nebari

Hi Jarrod,
A beautiful example, and WOW have you got some Dynamic Lifter on that baby

Regards Panda

A nice looking Mugo with lots of potential Jarrod. I am looking forward to seeing updates on this tree. Also good to see a tree getting well fed. Beginners, take note.

Thanks Bodhi,
I always give lots of food to my trees, this is the spring feed, there is also a heavy feed at the end of summer as the temps start dropping again. This is combined with liquid feed weekly.

Wil definately keep this tree updated as I am very excited about its future.