There are going to be massive discrepancies here about what is considered back-budding.
Back-budding as Shibui is trialling, is from a hard cut-back with presumably no foliage remaining.
Now... back-budding in general can just be new buds that appear near the lower parts of the trunk naturally.
But to encourage back-budding on older material is also relative to your interpretation of 'old wood'.
There are many varieties of natives that are considered prolific at back-budding after a cut-back yes, but a lot of these prolific back-budding varieties are very hard to encourage the new buds to form way down low without a heavy trunk-chop. For instance, lets take a commonly known 'back-budder' of Banksia integrifolia. Yes it will back-bud fantastically, but it will not normally back bud down lower on the trunk on old wood (over 10 years) on the lower trunk areas. It usually back-buds to about 5-7cm or so back from the cut without fail. However, if you are wanting new shoots to form much lower down on the trunk, you usually would need to do a trunk-chop to get new shoots down low on B. integrifolia. And obviously a complete trunk chop is a disaster if you want new shoots to appear down low without losing the main branch structure.
The same can be said of the well known Moreton Bay Fig and almost the same with PJ figs. It is a prolific back-budder, but again only back from about 10cm back from the cut area. Without doing a massive trunk chop, it can be near impossible to encourage new shoots way down on the trunk without doing this.
Of course this is not a rule, and you do get the occasional random new shoots forming, but I have not had such luck on much older wood without trunk chopping on all my natives.
My recommendation is to simply cut back continuously on the material when it is young. When it is over 5-10 years old on most material, you'll struggle getting branches down low without seriously losing a lot of the branch structure from an actual trunk chop.
Ironically, a few comments here are that Leptospermum scoparium is not good at back budding, or temperamental. More recently over the years I have found the exact opposite. To maintain better health, as long as you leave about half of the foliage on and do not touch the roots, you will get prolific back budding... and on older wood every time.
It is the combination of root work together with branch reduction that will promote death with L. scoparium.
So yes, I generally leave about half the foliage on all my material these days, and cut-back hard into the other half to promote back-buddng. But for even commonly hardy material, it can be an impossible task to get new shoots low on the trunk without doing a massive trunk chop.
So take advice if you are new, or have young material. Continously cut back every year to get movement and a lot of branches. As the material is older, you will be rewarded with a lot more branches to experiment with, rather than a barren trunk and a heap of branches up top.
But I am yet to discover the golden answer of how to get new shoots down low on old material without trunk chopping.
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In regards to Melalueca linarifolia, it naturally does not produce new buds down low on older wood. I have cut-back hard and always get new growth to appear from about 5cm back from the cut. I have struggled to get new growth to appear much lower down on the trunk without a massive trunk chop. With Melaleuca linarifolia as long as the material is in excellent health, I've always got new shoots appearing after a drastic trunk chop. But it is not desirable if you want to keep the branch structure.
