I picked up a nursery dwarf Mugo a few weeks back, hoping to practice on it this year.
It’s finally pushing new growth, especially a ton of tiny cones.
Do these need to be pruned or pinched or left alone?
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In an older stream I just watched, Ryan said that removing the pollen cones (the small ones that encircle the shoot) tends to do more damage than good. Of course I watched it just after I had rubbed them all off one of my trees. I don’t recall anything about the seed cones, but they they do require a fair bit of energy which may be useful (slowing growth in refinement) or slightly harmful (absorbing energy during development) in my opinion.
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Don’t do it. I set a tree back by a year doing that, it can damage bud formation.
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I leave pollen cones alone. In the autumn you may need to cut back to just below the cones if you don’t want long internodes. I snap off female cones when I can.
I have a mugo which sent out a lot of pollen cones this year. All this year’s growth will have to come off once the tree has re accumulated its energy. Sucks, but that’s just how it goes.
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