Oh I should also mention that the above mentioned spacing would place the trees 30ft from existing eastern white pine. So the spacing would go (from North to South) white pine -- 30ft -- new tree 1 -- 30 ft -- new tree 2 -- 30 ft -- white pine.

Daneil, the eastern side of your home isn't likely to be sunny for very long, mine isn't. The sun rises, then the sun is elsewhere for most of the day. But, I would choose the Eastern Redbud. They like some shade. But, If the other exposures of your yard have anything like Silver maple or catalpa planted there, they aren't very strong wooded trees, not that Eastern Redbud is, but, they are not huge trees, they're good for an eastern exposure more than the S.Maple and catalpa. S.Maple gets huge, but throws down lots of dead branches continuously, Catalpa has nice blooms, doesn't get hugely tall, but likes more sun. I hope that you have at least a couple longer lived trees in your yard. It's none of my business, but, oaks, Sugar maples, Pecans, hickories, dawn redwood, bald cypress etc. These trees will last long and cause few problems until they are about 300 years old plus. Maybe not even then. With a few exceptions. I mean if you plan on keeping your house and property long, it's good to have good solid long lived trees.

Check out some of the hybrid elms, especially 'Accolade'. A handsome tree with beautiful glossy, dark green foliage and a most satisfactory growth form. Like all elms, does not waste a lot of time getting growing.

But that's just one of numerous options. I would say, while I do not share the view here so common that silver maples are unworthy trees, it is correct that they do break up in storms, and both that species, and the interspecific hybrid 'Autumn blaze' must be carefully managed when young to develop a single leader and good, wide-angled branch structure. Look up subordination pruning and the more general but related leader training to see what I'm talking about here. U-Florida website has much good info under the researcher Ed Gilman.

I like white pines too and would not personally want to crowd mine with super-fast-growing shade trees, since the pines will be the worse for it. You may have room, but I think it a bit tight. Especially for these very fast-growers.

I continue to view with alarm the strong tendency which has developed on this board to answer every query about shade trees with listings of small-growing ornamental species, things like crepe myrtles, etc. Those little guys do produce some shade, of course, but are the answer to different questions than those being asked. Not sure why this keeps happening here. Arborophobia?

a pic of the area might spur us on ... ken

Eastern redbud isn't a large tree, and may be ideal next to a house. I wouldn't plant silver maple at all, weak wooded, invasive roots, no fall color, leaves always look like they are dying. I have 3, if they weren't 70ft tall they would be gone now. I like elms, (as wisconsitom suggested) however they will most likely succumb to DED. I also like the idea of pines, but maybe pinus taeda instead of white pine. I am not familiar with catalpa.

Caldwell, while I agree silver maple has a few strikes against it, I sense it must look better here than in your haunts. Here, fall color, while nowhere near sugar maple or even red, is a decent soft yellow. And the trees look good right through the long, hot summer, for the most part. But yeah, one of the first things I did when we bought this house many years ago was take down a little silver maple=only about 16 inches at breast height-that had been allowed to get that good of a start already with a pronounced lean right back towards our little house! I still had the giant one in the back-lol-but no way was that front yard one gonna stay!

The neighbor's look worse than mine (you saw that picture). I do not like the leaf color, looks like they should be curling up (maybe it's just me). Here the leaves just turn brown and stay on the trees until they fall off.

Well I tried to post several pics earlier today and apparently they didn't post. At any rate I was pointing out in the pics that the space is about 90ft by 60ft with an existing silver maple at the 90th foot. So any tree that's planted can easily be spaced close or father than 30ft from the house.

Redbud are pretty but small and short lived. More for people trying to squeaze in a few decorative trees into a small lot then shade. Might work if the goal is to block a first story window, but would have to be closer then 30 feet. Silver maple is a good native tree and I think fears of intrusive roots are overblown but the weak wood is a concern. Autumn Blaze would have been a decent choice.

Catalpa are gorgeous when they are in bloom but a bit messy and I find them ugly the rest of the year. The last of course is purely a matter of taste...go to your friend's house and look at them. I've heard conflicting accounts of the durability of their wood.

Is your soil swampy, or is it compacted construction fill? Either might limit your options.

If you want fast, probably baldcypress, tulip tree or sycamore are the fastest choices that aren't terrible...but they would eventually outgrow the spot. (As would any fast growing tree.) Beech, tupelo and sugar apple are my favorite shade trees, but they grow slowly and don't like construction sites. Oak and maple are the standard choices for this situation.

I typed your specs into online tree finders an for some reason the computer spit out Kentucky Coffee Tree and Hedge Maple.

Remember, evergreens to the north and deciduous trees to the south.

The roots are invasive enough to bend a lawnmower blade, literally. Eastern redbud is short-lived when compared to trees like oaks and pines, I have seen redbuds last 50 years or more before they self destruct. I would prefer sugar maple if I was looking for a shade tree, dense canopy, great fall color, and interesting bark. On the more exotic looking side is Norway Maple 'Royal Red'. Other considerations that should be made are things like willow oak and tulip poplar, maybe even cucumber magnolia.

Most people may not be aware of this, but Apple, Pear, and Cherry grown on their own roots can make great huge trees. The reason you never see them sold own-root is because it would take too long until the tree began producing fruit (stunted growth from being grafted on a rootstock means fruit production begins earlier in the tree's life, paradoxically). Cherries especially are fast growing.

Apples, Pears, and Cherries (eve ornamentals) are prone to lots of diseases. I would NOT plant an ornamental fruit tree unless I wanted to start a spraying program.

Well I do think it's interesting that Cherry came up. Cherry is one of the fruit trees I'm considering and at one point I was looking at the possibility of putting a "standard" Stella cherry in this positioning.

Regarding the soil it's a clay loom and tends to have the squish squish effect for a several days after a good rain and in turn be dreadfully dry and restive of water during long dry spells like we're having right now.

Also I realized that I failed to mention that the shade is more about the yard than the house. The septic system is on the south side of the house where the good shade trees are most needed so I've sort of succumbed to a reality that good shade for the house is unlikely. It's also a two story (cap cod) so smaller trees like red bud, cherry, etc are only going to shade the down stairs windows.

In a perfect world I would probably put a native Oak (red or white) in east yard and have a tree that meets all the desirable criteria. But I fear I'll be deep into retirement before we get any notable shade from a slow growing tree. I was trying to figure out if there's a way I can put in a few fast shade trees with a slower growing oak or pecan in the middle an trim the fast growers as the slow grower gets larger. But while I have a lot of space I'm not sure I have that much space.

Here are a couple pics of the site. Hopefully they will actually post this time.

From the North looking south:

The trees in this pic from left to right are: white pine, silver maple, white pine. Please note I am disregarding the two shurbs by the house, if they survive the shade addition good, if not it's not a big loss.

Ok from the south looking north:

The bushes are prominant in the pic the white pines look more distant than they are. Far in the back ground are crab apples that line the driveway.

And from the house looking out:

The (alive) tree in distance is silver maple. The nearby bush is mulberry coming back from a stump.

If you have time to give a cherry tree the attention it needs, including regularly spraying with fungicides go ahead. I don't want to spend 1 hour everyday trying to figure out what disease it is this time......

hmm, that does masked the dual shade fruit tree less desirable.

so on the sycamore, I've heard they have the invasive surface roots too. are they less deductive than silver maple. might be a good option since they don't seem to have the weak wood problem as badly.

I have no personal experience on sycamore, if you want a maple I would go with the standard acer rubrum or acer rubrum 'autumn blaze'. You could also use acer saccharum for a wider spreading tree.

If you are considering fruit trees, what about American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana)? Strong wood, shade tolerant (in case you plant it near something else fast growing) doesn't get as many diseases as the typical fruit trees.

I like the idea of mixing fast and slow growing trees. It works best when the slow growing trees are shade tolerant (like Sugar maple, tupelo, and beech) trees that can live in the shade of faster growing trees. The slower growing trees will be there when the faster growing ones succumb to old age, fall to a storm, or outgrow their location an have to be taken down.

I think the risks of planting trees on a septic tank, though real, are exaggerated. I've never lived in a place that had a septic tank without trees growing on them, and it's never caused a problem. It certainly can, but often doesn't. It's a calculated risk.

American persimmon is a nice tree and would definitely work for this. If you want fruit you need to have another nearby pollinator. I don't care much for the fruit, not very tasty. It is a nice tree that produces appealing light shade.

Many uses of the word "invasive" here that don't comport with its actual biological meaning. An "invasive" root just doesn't mean anything. An aggressive root-now that I could handle. But biological invasiveness is an actual thing with an actual meaning, and it has nothing to do with anything being discussed in this, or a bunch of other threads where the word is now being used here recently. Invasive-in the biological sense-means capable of pushing out native plants and especially, whole native plant communities, the way say, Brazilian pepper is able to crowd out all manner of native flora in S. Florida.....or common buckthorn here in the north.

I get it that non-tree peeps would just fling a word around randomly, but I'd like to think we're better than that here.

The Catalpa tree was not mentioned in the above discussion. In my opinion they are a nice tree with some draw backs. On of the prime reason to have a Catalpa is their flowers in the spring. They are about bell shaped about 3 by 4", and have a sweet smell, similar to roses and honeysuckle. We had to go to Lawrence Indiana and take the river road over to Madison. The whole river valley smelled great as the Catalpa was in bloom, along with the other spring blooming flowers. A 80' tall tree covered with blooms is impressive.

There are two down sides. One is there beans. These turn brown and drop into your yard. The easiest way to handle them is with a rotary lawn mower. They jam up a reel mower.

The other is they tend to get what we called Catalpa worms. They are great for fishing.

They are a large long lived tree. When young I would mow my neighbors yard. He had to large Catalpa trees in his front yard. From the age of the house, I would suppect the trees were over 50 years old at that time. It was 60 years later that they died and had to be removed.

If we had the space we would have one in our yard.

So I didn't realize sugar maple was shade tolerant. That opens up some new options. I suspect I can probably get sugar maple from a friend as well. Also I already have one American persimmon so that might be a good option.

So saying I were to plant silver maple with sugar maple to fill in. How would we space that?

Regarding the Catalpa tree. I was wondering if that would be a good option near the house since it doesn't have destructive roots. But it sounds like it gets to a be a really large tree with rather weak wood just like the silver maple so I'm not sure that's a good near the house option either.

Maybe the sugar maple should be nearest the house with Silver more distant...Any thoughts?

Sugar maple could be closer to the house, the silver maple could preferably be planted in another country. After researching catalpa, I would plant it about 50ft-60ft from the sugar maple because it will spread out. I would plant sugar maple AT LEAST 20ft-30ft away from the house, they get wide.

Sugar maple and persimmon both have strong wood and both are shade tolerant. You need a male and a female American Persimmon to reliably get fruit.

Oddly, I've heard people go both ways on the strength of catalpa. I like the idea of pairing sugar maple with something else.

What about sticking catalpa on the southern edge of that septic field? If it gets big enough it could provide a little shade.

I like northern catalpa, plus, I don't believe we get the catalpa worms up here. Never seen them. I don't think of catalpa as "weak-wooded". The only downside-and this won't matter for many decades-is that once they get large and mature, pruning them is an incredible PITA. Not that you-homeowner-would likely be doing that work yourself. I'm talking when it's 60 ft. tall-that sort of thing. And to me, the flowers, while nice enough, are not at all the main show. It's the big, handsome leaves and just the overall shape and appearance of the tree. Flowers are a distant third place in my hierarchy.

Daniel, If you want a fast growing white family oak, I will have "chestnut oak" acorns ready soon, they are fully formed, just not ripe yet. The tree grows fast. The downside is that they produce acorns at 4-5 years old. They will be pretty large at that age. Or you can easily find a white oak Q. Alba in fall and collect acorns, sow a few and have that slower (but not neccasarily slow) growing oak tree in your yard to take over where the others may eventually fail. The acorns should be where they can get lottsa sun. Just an idea, oaks aren't always slow growing. Just offering another option. many Red family oaks are fast growers (not just Pin oak) There is Shumard, nuttall's N.red, northern black oak (Velutina) Cherrybark oak etc. If you want any "chestnut oak" acorns for free, it is the Quercus Prinus/Montana, if you want to look it up. It is your yard, I just wanted to offer.

Also, anyone else wanting any of the Q. prinus/montana acorns just holler here.

I would offer you a willow oak and a red maple, but they wouldn't survive shipping. Red maple (acer rubrum) and it's cultivars ('Autumn Blaze') are great trees that you should look into. Kousa Dogwood (cornus kousa) may be worth looking into. They are slow growing at first, but eventually can provide some shade. What about american hornbeam? They also have interesting seeds and nice fall color.

Poaky1, thanks for the offer. Let me think on that. I do really like oak trees so I might consider that option. I have one small pin oak sapling growing on the property that I was thinking of relocating. But it could be interesting to get some other oaks in there too.

So I'm kinda thinking at this point I might need to get out the measuring tape and start looking at some options again. I had originally marked off 2 autumn blaze 30 ft from the house and two silver maple another 30 feet from that. Now with all the options of sugar maple, and persimmon, and catalpa, and oaks and beach, and dogwood I'll have to think through it all again. I'm trying to work up and overhead map of the property. I think that will be especially helpful. I've almost finished getting the existing trees marked in.

I actually like the fruit of persimmon. Where I grew up it is not only native but common so while it's not my favorite fruit I do like to get some. So I'll almost certainly add another persimmon. Although persimmon pollination is a whole other discussion. Looks like the trees are either male or female and there are different numbers of chromosomes...pollination madness I say. Thanks everyone for the input. I'll have lots of fodder for the drawing board now.

Daniel, you can get Persimmons from Oikos nursery. about the oaks, if you want acorns (the best way to get oak trees) don't think about it TOO long. They will be ripening between late Aug and Sept, maybe as late as Oct. I will be looking for Q. Alba, White oak in late August, and early Sept. I will be sowing a couple Quercus Alba acorns in an area in my yard that is literally in the corner of my property. I know I won't have to water it and fuss with it. I want to see how fast and successfully a tree sown from seed/acorn will do as far as growth.

I will add that my Willow oak isn't very fast growing. I will have to try and fertilize it next spring. to fert it now would produce new growth that may not harden off before winter. But, I will be fertilized in March or April

In Sept or Oct I'll get Quercus Alba acorns. Quercus Prinus/ Montana acorns in late August.

Poaky1, I'm thinking I just might go for the Chestnut oak, a relatively fast grower, pretty strong wood, long lived. What more can you ask for. Did you grow yours from acorn? If so what size do you estimate it was at 5 and 10 years?

Whatever you choose, if you plant anything else (something to give you shade more quickly while your slower growing chap is making progress) you could plant the quick one where it won't shade the slow one. (This is a bit obvious but thought I'd mention it.)

Okay Daniel, I have your address now. I'll send the Quercus Prinus/Montana Chestnut oak acorns soon likely Friday. Then if you want some Quercus Alba White oak acorns, I am thinking Late Aug or some time in Sept they will be ripe. There are several mature white oaks near me. It's a small area where I dug up my Q. Albas I am guessing 2006. Those are the trees that I have now that are about 15 feet tall, maybe close to 20 feet tall. I sowed several last fall, from the mature trees about 1 mile or less from me. But, decided that they were too close to my house and culled them. They were about 10 feet from my house, they may have been fine there, but, many posters on here said that was too close, so I erred on the side of caution. But, anyway, the Ch. Oak acorns may be sending out taproots (radicles) when you get them, so they should be sown right away or the taproot or radicle will dry out. I think also that possibly they may not send out radicles/taproots right away, but, it will not be long before the radicles/taproots come out, so it is best to decide where you want them and sow the acorns ASAP and perhaps sow a few different acorns a few feet from each other, and decide which of them has the best form. I think I already posted this above, sorry if I did, but, really, as I mentioned I have 2 Chestnut oaks that have 2 different growth forms, they are both tall, but, one is wide and 1 is just tall and narrow. I also have this same thing with 2 English oaks. I sowed both from acorns from Ebay, they are from the UK, one is the normal wider form and one is taller and narrow. I believe they are both (the English oaks, Quercus Robur) from the same tree. So anyways, I think if it were me I would sow maybe 4 different places with the Chestnut oaks, and within likely 3-4 years,( likely 1 or 2) you will see the growth form of the Ch. oaks, and pick the desired form for you. Mine would be the wider growing form. I do think that eventually the Ch. Oaks would grow wider, but, I would pick one with a wider growth in youth, but, hey, maybe you may want one somewhere that holds off on wider growth until very old. AS far as the Q. Alba, my 2 that I have now are tall and thin, but, I think that is a normal thing for white oaks, ( Q. Alba) in youth. Well, anyway, I have a CH. Oak which is about 8 years old and shades a big enough area that i have several shade plants growing under it, and that a good reason for Daniel to be happy with a Ch. oak. Again Daniel, plant a few of them a few feet apart and choose the one with the best form. You should receive them by Wed or Thurs the 24th or 25th.

Hmm, so after 8 years you have enough shade to grow shade loving plants. They must be pretty good size then. Seems like a really small tree wouldn't give enough shade for that.

I am thinking of doing bare-root trees this winter. I have several willow oak and white oak if you prefer already growing. I will also have some redbuds. You pay shipping.

Caldwell, thanks for the offer. Of those I might be interested in the redbud. I have a friend who has offered me a wild redbud. I need to check and see if they were only offering one, or just saying they have redbud if I want one/some. But either way if I could get two or three I'm pretty sure I have places I would put them. I need to check back with the friend on how many are available. Thanks again.

Daniel, I will send those Ch Oak acorns out Tuesday 23rd Aug sorry I forgot to do so Friday. I'll check on the Q. Albas in the woods also before sending the Ch oak, later.

Daniel I started a new subject on here click on it and the words "Chestnut oak" and you'll see the parent tree with the shade plants under it. The pic was from a distance, so the tree looks smallish. I could'nt find this post at first, so started a new one. You'll get the acorns Fri or Sat.

Well the acorns arrived today. My son is really excited to plant an oak tree...as am I. Along a related note I wasn't able to find your pic of the Chestnut oak. Could you post the link here? Thanks!

Keep in mind those pines you already have will likely get pretty large.

yep thanks, I hope they do! if I had planted them I would have placed them different. hopefully they will make good shade eventually.

Daniel, just click on the words ch oak above

Thanks for sharing. If that's ten years of growth then I'd say it looks like that's definitely a shade tree for the long haul. But that's pretty much the point with the plan I'm going for. Thanks again for sharing.

The tree is still young of course Daniel, but, not bad for it's age.