London Plane Tree?

How big is the lawn? A London plane is a big thing - forest size.

a pic of the spot would sure help ...

as would narrowing down location to a city name we might know ...

if there are any local arborteums.. now might be a great time to visit.. and see what grows locally.. and what fall color could be... or a local tree farm ...

i would suggest.. you want NOTHING that claims to be fast growing... within 50 feet of your house ... if not more ...

ken

We are in a suburb outside of Boston. I can maybe post a picture of the house when I get home later.

Why do we not want fast-growing?

My husband actually really likes the London Plane, but I don’t love the way the bark looks.

Tulip Tree?

Fast growing trees tend to be weak wooded and easily damaged by winds, weather and ice storms. And fast typically equates to big!! A big tree (50' +) may also not be of an appropriate scale for both the size of the garden and the height of the house.

We really need to see photos of the area to give pertinent suggestions.

The traditional answer would be sugar maple.

But there's about 59 that would work.

Best advice I got? Find a local garden center.

While fast growing trees tend to be weaker than other trees, remember fast growing is in tree time not yours. Even the fastest growing trees will take 10 or more years to be any thing like your concept of a tree.

Our Nuttal oak has grown about 50% in height in the last 7 years but is still less that the height of our 2 story house. It is just now starting to provide the screen from the street light that was the purpose of planting it where it is.

You can see the house below.

We were planning on planting the tree at the left corner of the image, roughly 5-10 feet in from the street corner. Each of those patches of lawn flanking the front walk are ~50' wide and 40' deep. This would give the house at least 35' of clearance from any tree that we choose to plant.

northern red oak

Good spot for a tree. Are they aggressive with road salt there?
I still like Tulip Tree...fast growing, has flowers (although they can be hard to see) and decent Fall color.
Bald Cypress is one of the few fast growing trees that isn't weak wooded or short lived.

American Beech, Copper Beech, and Tricolor Beech go well with Victorians but all are really slow growing.

Celebration maple. It's grows like a silver maple, but doesn't have the upheaving and foundation punching. The branches don't break like the silver and it doesn't bury you in seeds. It has perfect form, much like a Linden, and it's fairly pretty in the fall.

There is a huge Celebration Maple on my street, A beautiful tree!