I thought that was your Stewartia thread, a lot of those principals apply same.
It totally depends on the size of the wound to be healed, determines how large the "new leader" must be in order to heal it, or even uro it believably with appropriate looking healing growth if we're deep diving.
The thing for me is, another cutting straight through a lot of BS "opinions" that remain opinions because there is never talk of any of the variables.....Last Repot, soil type, watering, growth rates, fertilizer, etc etc....that are very relevant to the process.
What isn't a variable, ever, is the fact that no tree will ever lose any design options if you wait, which tells us any and every premature cut that didn't heal was just a result of impatience.
Hell, nevermind all the "opinions" shared without relevant information that leaves us with no answers....
Just seeing 2 trees of the same type in roughly the same situation grow at 2 completely different rates should be enough to keep us from cutting to build instead of building to cut.
Everything we don't cut adds energy.
Everything we remove removes design options.
If we remember that, patience becomes.
Sorce