Nurseries in the Midwest and the East US used to sell the regular Mugo Pine (Pinus mugo) since the early 1900's into the 1970's. They found more dwarf varieties of the species as Pinus mugo mugo and Pinus mugo pumilio and started using them instead. I've seen old specimens of Mugo Pine in cemeteries that are definitely 15 to 20 feet high and wide; still with a shrubby form with several trunks. The dark green needles are in 2;s and are 1 to 3 inches long, stiff and prickly. It is slow growing of 6 to 10 inches/year. If people knew that one can prune pines by cutting off most of the new candles growth in June or so, one can keep it as a low shrub 3 to 6 feet high for decades. It does well like its big sister of Austrian Black Pine in the silt-clay and slightly alkaline soils of the upper Midwest. Younger shrubs can be damaged or killed by the European Pine Sawfly or by white Pine Scale insects. Native to central and southern Europe in the mountains.

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