Denise,

First, a question: was the damaged top already trimmed out?

Now, what I know and gleaned from my AHS pruning and training manual:

1) Conifers should only be pruned in dormant season; i.e. late fall, winter and early, early spring. They bleed profusely during active growing season (you know, that yucky sappy sticky stuff)

2) When pruning the damage or in going back and trying to rejuvenate possible top growth, prune back to a section of couple of nodes that are on opposite sides of the trunk and closed spaced together. Make the cut at a 45 degree angle about six inches above the nodes if possible. Then, make vertical cuts in the six inch portion above the nodes.

This might POSSIBLY force a double leader growth out the top of the tree and give you an option of choosing the strongest leader in a year or two to train into the single leader it used to have. Oh, and the measurement of balanced height on cedrus atlantica is six times the diameter of the trunk, so you can guesstimate how much height you might have to work with.

If this doesn't happen, and I will simply quote AHS here:

"With few exceptions, conifers do not regenerate freely from old wood and, in most cases, renovation is limited to the removal of dead or dying branches. Removal of the top usually results in a mutiliated appearance." Bummer, I know.

However, please try. If it doesn't work, then you can have the tree removed. The reason I say this is because we suffered enormous ice damage to many of our 100+ year old trees and various other mature woody plants. I pruned, but like you, figured I had several lost causes that would best be cut down. To my surprise, and patience only God gave me, after three years, we lost nothing and even plants that were a stub and nothing more, have rejuvenated after pruning on them for the past three years, such as my 10-foot tall peegee and tardiva hydrangeas; my 20 foot tall oakleaf hollies which has the tops broken out of them (the twin leader thing worked!) and all of my prized mature Japanese maples came through having their tops broken out.

Crossing my fingers for you,

Marcy