"mm" wrote in message
...

You're right. It's 25 to 30 feet tall, about 31 years old. In
Baltimore, Maryland, which gets a moderate amount of rain, usually
maybe more than "average", and it gets a lot of sunshine.

I don't think anyone generally prunes these branches because normally
one can't get at them. The very heavy snow fall last winter bent
down or broke about 1/3 of the tree, part that I propped up again and
tied to the main trunk, and the other part that died and I had to cut
away. After I cut off whole branches, the inside was visible. It
never had been before, on this tree or any tree like it.

So maybe I'm looking for a guess about how an evergreen tree that
normally has lots of dead branches inside will look when the branches
are all cut out.

You can probably get free advice from the local agency for
public parks. Any tree that lost a third of its branches to
snowfall is seriously damaged and may require major
surgery in order to survive (and look good). Evergreens
seem in this respect more vigorous than deciduous trees.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)