rockm

I guess my question would be why are you defoliating when you are trying to achieve thicker branches. Defoliating is nice for almost finished trees, but it slows down growth considerably during the initial design phases.

This is a nice gnarly trunk that deserves nice gnarly thick branches to go with it. Since Crepe is such a fast grower, I'd look to allow the branches to grow wild for a year or two, prune them back hard. Then allow them to grow back for another year or so, building up thickness and directional character in the branches...