you can do whatever you want with your tree.. its yours ... who cares what we think ... i am of the conifer school that works on the premise that the weirder the better ... others belong to the school that all conifers must look like xmas trees ... make your choice of which school you belong to ... and be happy ... conifers.. left to there own devices.. will grow in a shape wherein they develop a structure to support themselves.... when we .. or the original grower started 'training' this weirdo into an unnatural shape ... he/we are potentially creating structural issues ... do what you want.. with an eye towards creating a stable tree... and you will be all set ... so stake it for training.. and for stability .... nothing worse.. than 5 or 10 or 20 years down the line.. the thing collapses in a storm or something.. because you made it so weird ... IN MY WORLD .... i would get a lot of joy out the process ... and if it made my toes curl every time i walked by it.. then i really dont care what happens in 5 or 10 or 20 years .... my happiness is worth whatever comes of it.. and if it fails.... i will gt to try again.. or try something else ... i look at it this way ... if i spend 200 bucks on tree ... and it lives 20 years.. will it be worth 10 bucks a year ... the price of one crumby meal.. for the excitement of walking out there everyday ... i say yes .... if it only lasts 10 ... costing me 20 bucks.. or one decent meal ... etc ... its your tree ... have fun with it ... go to google.. type in the name.. find the latin name.. paste it back.. and then go to google images.. and you will see probably hundreds of pix of this very common plant ... and see where it is going over the years.. and what you can do with it .. the sky is the limit... good luck a little zen ken today.. lol

The pond one is unique and just getting started to be very desirable as it grows. There is plenty of room to let it free range. If you want to keep those two long branches they will have to be supported as long as you have the Atlas. Front yard specimen...really is out of its element to grow and become a nice presentation plant. There is no room for this to happen. If you don't have an area to relocate then you will have to selectively prune it to keep it in in confines. As it was not trained for much upward growth it has become a ground creeper and that area for expansion is limited. Anything that is staked for height get rid of. These are secondary branches that will not support themselves in free air for many years especially those driveway bound. The photos of this cultivat are not easy to decipher in regard to pruning for the most desirable look. Go for the obvious cuts first. That in turn should should help you decide on where to go next. Another thought I am getting is you don't think the branches should lay on the ground. Nothing wrong with this. and quite normal. The one growing over the rock is quite attractive and with this cultivar the only look that is possible because its growing habit has already been decided. Dave

Thanks any of those trees would be good. I will make a note of them. I am going to put it near the deck, so I don't want one that would have a branches over hanging the deck or a fire danger problem. I never knew they could be so small. If it's near to the deck it would easier to run a cord out for Christmas lights, but maybe I can get solar powered ones? That should be the new thing in lights. But eventually, we are going to remove the deck anyway and make the deck smaller, so I can have more planting room. I like the tiny rock garden trees also, but they are very hard to find, the website said. They look like pin cushions. We have a lot of Monterrey Pines in San Francisco. They grow very fast and do a lot of damage to sideways the foundations of houses, and they are not very attractively shaped either. They even grow as weeds around here. We also have a lot of Norfolk Island Trees. They are big and people top them, and then they really look terrible. It's hard to see a healthy conifer in my area. The next most popular tree is the some kind of Cypress. I don't think we are as ideal as the Northwest for conifers.

at that age ... they are too large to move .. and no tree should be 2 feet from a house ... want to see the pix.. but i bet the answer is.. they both need to go ... that said.. you could just start learning how to prune on them.. and see where you get ... i highly doubt they created the foundation crack ... but they could take advantage of it.. in the ensuing decades ... ken