Looks like a nice salvage job to me.
Looks like you're about to join The Weirder the Better Club.
Hey Ken, we have a new member!
Mike

oooo-wheee ...welcome

i never heard the term cloud prune ... perfectly apt ...

good luck with the plant... when it returns to vigor.. i have a feeling it wont last long ... unless you really enjoyed the decorative pruning ...

ken

That was a nice job, Dave. You'll have to do follow-up posts so we can see how it responds.

tj

Would be interesting to see if it backbuds or not. If it doesn't it will look pretty sweet.

Love to see a pic in fall.

There is cloud pruning and then there is krumholz pruning. Krumholz pruning is done to show the direction of a strong prevailing wind, like you would see on a windswept ridge in sub-alpine country. That's my favorite type of landscape.
Mike

I have a Miss Grace Dawn Redwood in a container. It's about 5 ft high and struggling. We brought it up to our house in Drake(7000ft) from Denver and the drive may have stressed it out. I have given it various high end fertilizers and obviously watered it but it is getting a little brittle on top and losing it's needles. We were told that we could keep it in the container but now I wonder it that is the problem. Any thoughts? Thanks Jay

I would yank it from the pot to look for root issues. If OK then plant it in the ground provided it is not to late in the season in your area. The 7000 ft. plus you don't mention your zone is a red flag for correct answer. You need to add that to your page AKA My Page.

Do not add fertilizer or soil amendments when you transplant.

Dave