The foliage on young trees is more like a procumbens juniper, then the mature foliage is more like a shimpaku. It takes a few years to mature - and it will revert to more juvenile in response to hard pruning.
To
@Rivka 's question re: back budding - once the interior growth has died off, back budding is difficult to impossible. This is common in a lot of cypress and even chamaecyparis species. And technically, these are now in the genus "Hesperocyparis" so add that to the list. I have yet to attempt grafting, but I suspect that this might work as a renewal technique. I have one tree that suffered a lot of die-off of branching that I plan to try it on.
Keep in mind that their natural growth habit tends to highlight the no-backbudding habit - all the foliage is at the tops/outer branching.
For freshly collected seed no cold or soaking is required. However when collecting, it's easy to end up with immature seeds because the cones seem to mature prior to the seed by a period of some months. I've collected cones that had nearly 100% germination of seeds, and others that had 0%.