Normally azalea bonsai are never chopped. Wire on the other hand is crucial and done early.
This Japanese azalea nursery site has some pictures of the 2 to 6 year old raw material they sell:
http://yamakaengei.com/index.php?main_p ... ex&cPath=1
Almost all azalea bonsai start out this way.
Azalea bonsai are 50% about bonsai qualities and 50% about flowers.
Also, since azalea in the wild are just flowering scrubs and not trees, when designing azalea bonsai, anything goes. This in stark contrast with most other bonsai subjects where there is limited artistic freedom because the bonsai must have the characteristics of the species in nature.
It all depends on what design you want of course. But wire is a difficult thing with azalea. They become brittle very quickly and will snap without warning. Also, the bark is easily damaged by the wire.
Before metal wire was available, azalea were not styled as bonsai. They are a flower oriented tradition that branched out into bonsai as plant styling became more advanced.
Cuttings are grown until they reach the apex of their imagined design. In the mean time all side branches are removed. Then they are wired.
I was mailed these pictures a few months ago by a satsuki garden owner from Japan. They are multitrunked designs.
They kinda look a bit similar to yours.
These aren't meant to be field grown into big trunks. These are just meant to be artistically wired and enjoyed when in flower.
If you go to the Japanese satsuki corporation website you can see pictures of many of the past winners.
http://www.japan-satsuki.com/satsukiten ... result.htm
At the bottom of the page there is an arrow left that lets you go to previous editions of the 'Koju-ten'. This is a competition held when azalea are not in flower and is purely traditional bonsai oriented. No meika designs or other flower oriented designs.
If you want something that looks remotely like this in 40 years, then that is quite a bit different from the pictures I just posted. But still they start off with these thin plants that are wired. Then they are field grown. Sacrificial branches will bud without pruning and these are grown and removed until the trunks are fat enough. Normally no trunk chops are used.
The site of this satsuki bonsai nursery has some nice pictures of field grown trunks:
http://satsukimania.net/index.php/map/s ... arden.html
So yes you can cut back hard and they will backbud. You can chop nursery plants and they will back bud very strongly.
This is a video of someone who did exactly that on a large number of ordinary nursery plants.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQCYRlkcEb0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oEB7OjlBl4
But as you saw the raw material styled to bonsai enthusaists on the first site I linked, the Japanese don't do this unless they want a super short mame design.
I will aim to get taper and direction with a single chop (or two or three or......)
