Developing deciduous foliage pads

b3bowen

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Any suggestions on the process of building foliage pads. I get the 2d nature of it, fan out the branch tips, but eventually that will result in a bare middle with leaves at the periphery. Im missing the 3d nature/vertical component. Here is a maple recently wired. 69A54E8B-8B26-489E-A404-0B43AC3ABD34.jpeg
 

MrWunderful

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Leave a branch going upward every once in a while. Thats how deciduous trees grow, they fill in open spaces with soft shoots when flushing. Have that first branch come up instead of to the right

Also, i tend to think of “pads” as more of a conifer thing.
For deciduous, I think more of fingers reaching towards the light.

Depending on your goals, it may be hard to achieve what you are looking for, because in the picture those internodes look pretty far apart (unless there are backbuds to cut back to I dont see) so a denser look is going to be challenging.
 

Forsoothe!

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You get back-budding and filling-in of the interior by pruning the tips of stems/twig/branches. That fills in the interior space at the expense of not growing longer. Everything wants sun and grows "up" towards the light, that's why you spread the branches in a flat horizontal plane. The stuff grows "up" from there and you select what to trim or wire to grow up and out into the cloud/canopy that you imagine in your mind's eye. If you don't prune the tips they grow strongly from the ends of stems/twigs/branches and the interior buds grow less, or with less ramification and you develop a hollow interior.

I can't see where the 2nd bud set is, but you trim back to there so #2 becomes the tip. Sort of like this...
ramification 1.JPG
There is a dormant set of buds at each leafscar along the twig or branch that will be activated by tip pruning. Anything that's too short can be left alone to grow longer.
 
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leatherback

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I find that studying the shape of branches in trees you encounter on the street helps a lot in understanding how to fill the space in 3D.
Then I look at bonsai I really like and try to grasp the 3D configuration there. Next step is making yourself "see" how to get there when you only have a few branches.

This helps: http://bonsai4me.com/AdvTech/ATDeciduousBonsaiAutumnPruning.html
 

Brian Van Fleet

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Your wiring is ineffective as it is. Each wire needs to be secured by the one behind it (closer to the trunk). Look at the example, where each color is a different wire; notice how each wire is locked in by the one behind it? You have a few wires which aren’t secured to anything at all.
86B69E66-DC34-4322-B7AC-0002D4739658.jpegD7BDD1E3-E23A-44A5-8934-9AE275B00C0A.jpeg
I think you’re asking how to build volume in a pad, where, from the front, you see twigs emerging at different heights. proper wiring will help you accomplish this.
44C7D8D1-1974-44D8-A8E9-3AC1494E651D.jpeg
 

b3bowen

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Thank you all for taking the time. The video was also very helpful.
 

leatherback

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I think you’re asking how to build volume in a pad, where, from the front, you see twigs emerging at different heights. proper wiring will help you accomplish this.
Brian I think this image shows it all, well:

1606223267132.png

One info item might be missing; I think it was intended to be a side-view image, correct? This is contro-obvious if people in their mind are thinking planes instead of structures.
Naturally, you would (also) have this sort of view looking from the top. But key for me would be: From the side you get a similar positioning to build the 3D component
 
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