When should a bald cypress be pruned?
It holds a strong single leader and self-shades its lower interior, so the only honest pruning is deadwooding and clearance; structural pruning on this species is largely money wasted. The trap is landscapers limbing it up and clipping or topping the leader — bald cypress does not rebuild a lost leader, and the pyramidal form it was planted for is then gone permanently.
Reading bald cypress before you cut
Chlorosis on high-pH soil is the genuine decline signal: pale yellow-green new growth, worst near concrete and limestone backfill, which Purdue covers under iron chlorosis on trees. Spider mites and gall mites can bronze the foliage in a dry summer and read as decline when it is not; the things that actually matter are brown needles still held on the tree in midsummer and a thinning, twiggy top.
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