Advice needed.

I'd like to pick the collective brains of the forum for advice.  Firstly, I rescued this vaguely arboreal, foliage bearing object from my garden (it came with the house, honest!).  It seems to me the only hope is to prune it back and hope for some adventitious budding further back to regrow some branches but how far back can you prune something like this without killing it?  It's some sort of cypress or juniper but more than that I don't know.







Secondly, this small maple. Given to my wife, it's been in the garden for about 10 years. It has a very one sided growth pattern which may be due to its position behind the hedge. The branches all seem to grow downwards and are very curved and intertwined. The trunk originally ended in a wide bifurcation with no real leader to continue growing upward. A few years ago I managed to thread graft a branch into the bifurcation to act as a leader but it also immediately leaned over and resumed a downward growth. I don't necessarily want to grow it as a bonsai but any advice on what's going on and what to do with it would be appreciated.

Your maple is one of the Dissectum cultivars with a strong weeping habit, maybe 'Crimson Queen' or something similar. In terms of what's going on with it, it's just doing what it does naturally. Over a number of years it will eventually form a large mound - these often end up more as ground cover / shrubs than upright trees. It looks healthy, so I'd just keep on doing what you're doing and enjoy it for what it is.