🚀 go-pugleaf

I am new at both Java and Swing but believe that I understand what I'm
doing, so here goes:
I have an applet, with JTabbedPane on the Component Pane.  Each tab has a
JPanel with a VerticalFlow Layout.   The objects in the Layout are JPanels
with Border Layouts.   This goes at least two layers deeper.

I have been careful to build the layers from lower levels toward higher.  I
mean, create a panel, add its layout manager, add its widgets, then add the
assembly to the next layer up, after creating its parent and the layout
manager for that.  [The notion of up and down seems to work badly here]

I have set the JTabbedPane to opaque=false but have not messed with any of
the other layers.

When the applet deploys, all of the widgets in all of the panels are layered
in a mess on the screen.  Further, they are active, in the sense that
clicking the fragment of a button visible on the screen performs its action.

If I cycle through the tabs once, the screen clears and is subsequently
perfect.  I have tried to do this programmatically in the applet's start()
function with no success; that is, the cycling occurs, but the screen
display is not cleaned up.

I believe the fact that the display corrects as the tabs are cycled
indicates that the underlying model is correct.  Do I need to pack,
validate, opacify, or cast incantations before the intial display?

Suggestions?