Question
In my hometown in the Mississippi Delta, the town Christmas tree is an Eastern Red Cedar.  The height is about thirty feet and it is about thirty feet in diameter making it a ball instead of a cone.  Can this size specimen bounce back from the massive pruning it would take to make it conical again? Could we trim it back in stages and feed the roots?

Answer
Sounds like the terminal branch--tip of the tree, was pruned back. You will need to let the top grow and over time a branch will assume the position as the terminal and become the new top. This will take a few years. I would fertilize the tree with 13-13-13 fertilize at the rate of 1 lb per inch of trunk diameter scattered around the tree and watered in good. Apply the fertilize just before a rain storm and you will not need to water. You can begin to shape the sides by gradually pruning back the side branches to get the more conical look.

Follow the natural shape of the tree. Eastern red cedars tend to grow in an uneven, sloppy pyramid shape. Leave the lowest branches the longest, and gradually shorten the length of branches as you move towards the top of the tree. Do not remove more than 6 to 12 inches of green growth, as the external layer of leaves are the greenest and your tree may look bare for a long time. Once leaves turn brown in the interior of the tree, they do not grow back the vibrant green of external leaves.