Is your goal to have a fine winter branching silhouette, or casting light shade?

Hey beng,

Both but having a fine winter branching silhouette would be primary goal as it will cast shade from the south during the winter on a driveway.

I love black locust!

Red maple or Japanese Maple

Even old Japanese maples aren't considered large.

Often laughed at as being a bit common or weedy...but I have come to love the hybrid poplars in my wood. Tall, tall cathedral-like trunks and enough light to support grasses and wildflowers and a lush middle storey underneath the canopy. My soil is a little too alkaline for birches...but I would surely like to grow any number, especially the Asiatic red and copper birches.

"I would love to just plant a bald cypress but they are hit and miss. I can use Shawnee brave but it's too narrow"

When you say "hit and miss", do you mean in hardiness or in form?

Not sure if anyone is growing it, but there is a cultivar named "Heritage" (= 'Nelson') that is wider, and supposedly quite hardy. Shawnee Brave was introduced by the same person.

http://www.google.com/patents/USPP12502

Definitely hardiness. For those borderline species that have a preference for acidic soil I usually just stay away unless its a smaller growing tree.

Shawnee Brave is the only one grown around here, otherwise they are shipped in and who knows the seed source.

City of West Bend planted several bald cypress in a median and they all died after that 2013 winter. Personal acquaintance had a 30' specimen outside Milwaukee that also died after that same winter.

I hear the same feedback from many landscape professionals as well.

Cruise over to Longnecker gardens and they have a few massive specimens. I'm sure they did their homework on seed source. They have acidic soil to boot.