The neighbor's silver maple is about thirty feet from my concrete driveway and the driveway is cracked. There are also large roots in the grass that make it hard to mow the lawn. These houses were built in the '80's.

I have an old yard with good topsoil now, but I can't say the roots of my two were any issue. Same with the 6 around me. Now they are all either dead at 60 or are in decline at 40 but they DO have value. There is even a 3 foot one out back in my walnut thicket I am considering letting grow.

My guess is if you have a new beautifully compacted and leveled yard you'll have issues.

Ask your contractor what the crack expectancy of the pavement is. Mine just has cracks which have nothing to do with trees.

Daniel, the answer is purely a function of time. Silver maples, like many large-growing trees, have been shown to send out roots up to 2 and a half times the crown spread in all directions, so long as no impediment is reached. So from that, you can surmise that there is almost no distance at which pavement would be entirely "safe" from root interference. But that takes time to happen. The big one I had-largest silver maple in a city full of silver maples-was roughly thirty feet from my house foundation and a back drive area. We never had anything go awry, but I'd be lying if I said those roots didn't go everywhere. So how long have you got?

Our city is planting the very similar 'Autumn Blaze' Freeman maple, a naturally-occurring hybrid between red and silver maples, right along street terraces. So these trees are just a few feet from concrete hardscape. Yet we will not suddenly have all kinds of issues. It will take time-lots of time-for all this to happen. And by then, who knows what the status of any given tree might be? I wouldn't be overly concerned.

Thanks all for the input. And yes I do have lots of acreage. The entire lot is about 8 acres with half of it planted in corn. My plan is to space three silvers 30 ft apart in the area i want shade. This is a little close when they are full size but will provide a fuller shade sooner. Based on the 30 ft from the drive way is busting up the driveway comment I might look back to my original plan to go with some other tree at the location nearest the drive way. I was thinking autumn blaze or tulip. My understanding is that both of those have shallow roots too but they are not nearly as aggressive as the silver maple roots. Any further thoughts on this plan? I definitely want to get in right now and not have to fix it later.

Go with a variety of trees. Ask the idiots at the Gateway Arch grounds what happens when you have a monoculture and the bug specializing in killing that species comes through.

Silver maples have their place.

Tulip poplar is a good one. Pick in fall and you might get good fall color.

Sugar maple

Where are you again? Metasequoia is my favorite. Limbed up to walk under or left to grow its wide gnarly trunk.

Metasequoia "Ogon" is a yellow point of interest.

think of the billions of helicopters you will have every year ...

i would go with much smaller potential flowering trees.. to line the drive ... redbuds.. crabs... etc ...

i dont understand.. but didnt read too carefully ... why you need to shade the entire driveway ????

ken

You will still be waiting many years for much shade even with fast-growing trees such as silver maples. And with silver maple it may take longer to get the desired density of shade than with some other kinds due to its open growth habit. Are you planting future expensive problem trees now because you imagine you will have a lot of shade in a few years? Would at least part of the area where shade is wanted be better served with architectural or building accessory solutions such as arbors, awnings, a gazebo, trellis or even patio umbrellas?

I have three of them, they get pretty large. I wouldn't plant them anywhere near a driveway. Why not acer rubrum? they are easy to start from seed or cuttings. Maybe on the off chance you are open to something besides maples:

cornus alternifolia

crepe myrtle 'Natchez'

crepe myrtle 'Carolina Beauty'

cornus kousa

cercis canadensis

cercis canadensis 'forest pansy'

if you still only want maples you might want to consider acer platanoides 'royal red' andacer griseum.

If you were to plant 'Autumn Blaze' maple, to site one easy-to-acquire tree type, you would have the beginnings of shade in ten years easily, if the trees were ten or fewer feet from the pavement. Silver maple, including pretty much any straight-species example, would do much the same. Trees grow faster than people usually think. Right across the street from where I type this is an 'Autumn Blaze' planted perhaps twenty years ago, as an inch and a half diameter bare root specimen. It is now roughly 50 ft. tall, full-crowned, and I can park my car out there in the summer and keep it cool in the resultant shade. I don't know why somebody from an area renowned for its tree growth-Embothrium- always pushes the point of how you'll be "waiting forever" for a tree to grow, but here in plain-Jane old east-central Wisconsin, plants and trees grow much faster than that fellow's writings would have you believe. Wherever you are, you probably have a longer growing season than we do here and your results may be better still. Trees grow!

I still think the generic acer rubrum would work better than an 'autumn blaze', and they are generally cheaper. the last bunch I had sold for about $5 each, probably about 4ft tall.

Thanks all for your input and comments. Yesterday I was walking the property with a friend and I was showing him two oaks, I believe they are pin oak that are along the property line within 15 to 20 ft of each other. He suggested I attempt to transplant the smaller one to the side of the drive. It's probably 12 to 15ft high with at least a 4 inch base. So I don't know if its still within feasible transplanting size but if it is I'm thinking that's a really good option. Oh and by the way I'm in central Indiana. So that might help with the species suggestions.

I don't see that being worth trying to transplant.

what about

weeping cherry

thornless honeylocust

willow oak

crepe myrtle 'black diamond'

I know I am going to get killed for suggesting it but....

pyrus calleryana 'bradford' is one of the fastest growing trees for landscaping, I would use this as a LAST resort because I find this tree extremely undesirable.

The house we lived in until a couple years ago had a massive silver maple (I'm guessing 80 feet tall, and a trunk that was several feet in diameter). It was gigantic. And despite its size, I would still describe the shade it provided as "dappled". The leaves have thin fingers and light just gets through in speckled pattern. By contrast, our neighbors Norway maple was half the size and you almost needed a lamp to see underneath it. It let NO light through. Just a thought since shade is what you are after.

...^...yes, but silver maple-to use this example-will still provide absolutely adequate shade. I wouldn't steer anyone towards Norway maple given the known drawbacks with that species-too much shade actually, commonality of eventual girdling roots (in transplanted specimens only, which is all we're ever talking about on this forum), and finally, its invasiveness across a wide swath of N. America. Nice trees, but these factors make it a less-good choice I think.

Well I think I'm getting some good ideas here. I'm thinking the species at the top of my list are probably (not in this order) Thornless Honey Locust, Dawn Redwood, Autumn Blaze, Pin Oak, American Sycamore, and Silver Maple. I visited a coworker this weekend who has a drive way lined with honey locust and it was really pretty nice, though it was a cloudy day so I couldn't observer the shade so well. Dawn Redwood is pretty cool though perhaps it may have the capacity to outgrow the spot. Pin Oak and Silver Maple are desirable because I have several specimens that could be dug up and transplanted for free. The spot is also pretty windy. We get 60+ mile per hour straight winds as frequently as once per year and that spot is almost totally unprotected by surrounding trees. In fact it might even have a bit of a wind tunnel effect. So that's where I'm considering the pin oak and the Sycamore, as they seem to be a bit more wind hardy than the maples and the tulip tree I was originally considering.

Pin oak, dawn redwood, and honey locust are very good in wind. Silver maple is terrible, and I hear tulip tree has brittle wood ( although I know one happily growing in a very windy spot).. Not sure autumn blaze maple is actually that bad. Sugar maple is excellent with wind. Didn't realize sycamore was good with wind, I'd heard to the contrary (but don't know the tree that well).

Honey locust create light, dappled shade.

A mature pin oak could be difficult and expensive to transplant. Carefully mark the soil line with paint first.

Dawn redwood can look stupid limbed up...if you are trying for the branches arching over the driveway effect.

One caveat with either silver maple or its kin-'Autumn Blaze maple....these are both tree types that will absolutely develop lots of narrow V-crotches and competing leaders. This results in a tree that is not wind-firm and which can easily split out in heavy snow or ice loads. The solution to these problems is a good program of leader training and subordination pruning-two related terms I'll let you investigate-while the trees are young. So check that business out and should you reach for either of these, please do get back to us with any additional question. Pressed for time ATM, but I'd be happy to walk you through those techs at a later date.

That's really good to know. I was under the understanding that these trees are just "not great in wind/ice". Unfortunately, there are a couple silver maples on the property that the previous owner did not give the proper leader training. The largest has 5 competing trunks and the smaller has 3 competing trunks. tragically I'm afraid the larger one is past the point where this can be corrected. Good to know that proper training can help to improve the wind tolerance in these trees.

suggested I attempt to transplant the smaller one to the side of the
drive. It's probably 12 to 15ft high with at least a 4 inch base.

==>> not really in shovel range job ... more of a hire a tree spade job ... and by the time you do that ... it would be much simpler.. and cheaper.. to go buy a 4 to 6 foot potted tree and not kill yourself.. trying the impossible ... to get it in before tom responds.. lol .. yes it can be done .. but odds of success would be low .. even for a professional ...

in my MI ... april is the only time to plant or move oaks with high success ... which in MI .. is 4 to 8 weeks before the heat of summer hits.. and you do it in complete dormancy ... timing would vary according to your location ... of which im too lazy to flip back up and find yours

ken

https://www.google.com/search?q=tree+spade&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjrlrr-w-HNAhXCLB4KHfzkCK8Q_AUICigD&biw=940&bih=745&dpr=0.9

Well, this is what I was thinking, fortunately there are a couple much smaller pin oaks on the property, more in the 3 to 4 ft tall range. I think those would be much more likely to successfully transplant.

>Right across the street from where I type this is an 'Autumn Blaze'
planted perhaps twenty years ago, as an inch and a half diameter bare
root specimen. It is now roughly 50 ft. tall, full-crowned, and I can
park my car out there in the summer and keep it cool in the resultant
shade. I don't know why somebody from an area renowned for its tree
growth-Embothrium- always pushes the point of how you'll be "waiting
forever" for a tree to grow<

How many people posting here complaining of how hot their sites are RIGHT NOW do you think are anticipating - and willing to undertake - a 20+ year wait to get a shadow big enough to keep a car, or an entire outdoor sitting area, or the south side of a house etc. etc. cool?

For them the time it takes for a tree to grow in comparison to the nearly immediate relief provided by an architectural solution is forever.

It's the same as those asking about kinds of trees to plant for their kids to climb on. By the time the tree is big enough to do the job it will be too late, and they aren't thinking about this at all when they post their questions - they are visualizing the desired outcome as though it is instantly attainable.

Again I disagree....and the part where I think you go awry here is in assuming that this shade, which I describe as sufficient to park a car under-just got there today. This tree is of course still growing, and this rather wet summer we're experiencing so far is surely boosting that growth. But if it is-for purposes of this discussion-exactly 50 ft. tall now, do you think it was what...15 ft. tall last year? Of course that's not the case. It was nearly as large last year as it is this year....and it was nearly as large two years ago as it was last year. Again, I'm not at all sure where your general idea of tree growth rates come from Embo, but they seem decidedly out of step with things I see every day, here in one of the shortest growing-season regions of the country.

Maybe pergolas and trellises would be a great option for OP here, but that was not and is not the question being asked. I do try to answer that which was asked, not send things running down a new channel. Nor do I insult the various posters' intelligence by immediately assuming they have no sense of time. I'd be willing to bet that Daniel here knows it takes time for trees to achieve their "mature" size.

Go with smaller trees if you can. Here is a video I made last year that showed 8.5 years of growth on my Autumn Blaze maple (full sun and really good solid which helps) - planted as a 10 gallon container in fall 2006.

Unfortunately I didn't know about subordination pruning in the early days, so definitely look it up as mine has multiple leaders that could have been easily prevented.

https://youtu.be/OYaJOSTt84M

I also have a second autumn blaze in the front yard that planted around the same time but was very large caliper at planting (about 4 inches). I would say by year 5 or six this Lowes container tree surpassed the big one in the front yard in both size and shade.