I have just come into possession of a rather large ficus. It needs a lot of work! I am trying not to end up with ugly artificial-looking alternating pads, looking to try something more interesting or natural looking. Any design advice?? Thanks!

Hello and welcome. And congrats, nice starter material.
Hard to give any styling advice from the pics, this would deserve a thorough live inspection

Very cool plant. I feel tht this tree should be as little touched as ossible. The main setting for the tree ha been done.You could remove some of the large branches that come from down low to the to and create a bit of ai. Then use techniques as thinning, short trimming and defoliation to get better ramnifiation.

But as Mimo said, get someone nearby to work this with you. From a 2D image, it is near impossible to get a feel from the real options.

leatherback wrote: You could remove some of the large branches that come from down low to the to and create a bit of ai

Yes, the to is very useful to create some ai, i agree.

Auk wrote: Yes, the to is very useful to create some ai, i agree.

Auk, your ancient Japanese is rusty.
"To" means aiming to the sky, the upper part of the canopy.
"Ai" means a gentle breeze blowing through the sparse low foliage.

Thx Clicio.

You see what happened Auk? Instead of just pointing out everyones weaknesses, clicio went out and helped the OP and clarified my obvios typo errors. You could consider trying that some day too?

Somehow laptop keyboads do not keep up with my typing speed. I am so sorry some letters fell out.

leatherback wrote: Thx Clicio.

You see what happened Auk? Instead of just pointing out everyones weaknesses, clicio went out and helped the OP and clarified my obvios typo errors. You could consider trying that some day too?

Can you translate "moraalridder" for me?

Just joking. I make typo's all the time, using a tablet...
Clicio understood that, so je made a joke too. Maybe you can try that some time.

But no worries, I won't be here that often anymore. I have access to a computer rarely and using a phone/tablet does not really work that well.

Thank you for the input. I agree, the basic structure is what it is.