AusBonsai

First time posting on this forum and wondering if anyone can provide any tips to encourage a reasonably mature M. Lanceolata to back bud please? Thanks

Hi there.

Welcome.

Unfortunately I don't have any M.Lanceolata.
I absolutely love Moonah though!

Typically speaking back-budding can be encouraged via cutting back healthy vigorous trees during growth periods.
Some species may not back bud "past green" meaning don't cut beyond healthy leaves on a particular branch.
Many tree's which DO back bud well, can and will do so on older / bare wood.

A lot of Mel's I have experience with do, however I can't speak with confidence on Lanceolata.

Hopefully some others will chime in as I know that this species is increasingly used as Bonsai (and for good reason!).

I don’t have lots of these, but do have a few that have been grown from tubestock. Not as rampant as some other Mels in my experience, but I see great things in their potential as bonsai. Because they seem a bit less vigorous I’ve never cut back to bare wood (always left green) and provided the trees are strong they seem more than happy to throw buds at the cut site and below with this treatment. But, like I said, all mine are young (less than 5 years old) so keep that in mind. I have no reason to think this method wouldn’t be effective on slightly older stock, but that’s all hypothetical. Good luck with them, great trees they are!

Thank you both for the suggestions. Not cutting back "past green" I believe is the critical part and this is why growing Bonsai is such a fantastic thing to do especially with our native species. Time will tell with this one.
As they say if a tree has a particular issue, in this case overly long growth, make it a feature so this tree will be in the windswept style.
Thanks again