Have you looked at blue beech (Carpinus caroliniana) or the various serviceberries? Or are they not horizontal in branching enough for your needs? Are you looking to stay native or it doesn't matter?

Your viburnum actually has huge gaps in it, as though overly shaded or pruned too much

Open to any ideas just get me thinking.

Ah yes, serviceberry could work! I'll put that on the list. The red fall color

Shooting for tree as I'll have a mass of Bottlebrush Buckeye to the back which is upright/mounding with course texture. I agree the doublefile viburnum looks quite spectacular when in bloom.

Hawthorn

My winter king has been plagued by foilar diseases. I believe Cockspur is a bit more resistant. Another one to keep on the short list as they are strongly horizontal.

Cockspur is especially prone to getting Quince rust (Gymnosporangium clavipes) here in my area. Never causes excessive damage but it can be unsightly. The fruits can get heavily covered with it. Doesn't affect the leaves though. (Other rusts, like Cedar-Apple, will affect hawthorn leaves but I don't seem to ever have a problem with that.)

Would one of the river birches with pretty bark work for you or is it too large?

How about Ginkgo?

Do any of the other dogwoods work for you?

Can you grow Katsura?

I have suggested both native and non since we haven’t gotten an answer to MNTG’s question about that. Also, are you asking particularly about deciduous trees or would an evergreen work as well?

Pagoda dogwood is a good horizontal brancher, but as mentioned, the foliage can be attacked, particularly by the dogwood sawfly.

Sorry missed that one! Native or non-native would work.

MTG, I noticed the same here generally and have only grown one specimen myself. Very disappointed with Winter King though. Its pretty much defoliated 90% late summer two years in a row now.

NHbabs, all good suggestions. A low growing Ginkgo cultivar might be worth checking out. My only issue there is that I rarely get fall color from this species due to late freezes.

I actually started with wanting to use Cornus Summer Fun to get a nice color pop during the crowing seasons. This species just doesn't seem to have any vigor or they simply croak. Tried quite a few too. See the damn things every year at the nursery too.

Katsura has not bee reliability hardy for me so I wouldn't want to invest in three specimens. Still think its funny that we have folks growing them as young plants in -40 air temps.

Honestly evergreen is preferred but finding a vigorous cultivar that that has a spreading habit that can be limbed up doesn't see to exist. Once you factor that the backside will be shaded by trees overtime or simply that its northeast exposure eliminates many of the potential pine cultivars. Maybe I missing something out there.

Very curious about the problems with Pagoda dogwood. Here is grows wild at the side of the road with no issues at all and is a glorious sight. Can't imagine a better tree myself, but you might look at service berry (Amelanchier) or wild plum or cherry. (Prunus family)

The service berries have flowers, fruit (if the cedar waxwings and their friends don't eat them all) and fall colour, but don't have the majesty of the pagoda dogwood. I'm considering a Cornus kousa myself, but it seems a much more dense tree than it's cousin the pagoda.

Maybe crazy filberts - the walking stick has leaves too big I guess, but there are others, or some japanese maples or moon maple? I quite like the very common Amur Maple. They grow easily and you can limb them up to be a small open tree. Great fall colour. on leaves and samaras

Cornus controversa might be one to conisder. They have a nice variegated one.

I had June Snow but only for a couple years so tough to know how it would perform. I would love to use Nyssa and I've been looking for Red Rage forever.

Mary,

I too see them looking pretty good in their native habitat. They seem to get leaf diseases otherwise. I'm actually going to look into using a Hybrid Japanese maple Northwind for some purple foilage interest.

Lots of choices to consider now!

Mary, it just depends on whether the dogwood sawfly is prevalent in a particular area or not. Here, it seems to be, tho not every year. The sawfly here also defoliates red-osier dogwoods.

Fagus sylvatica 'miltonensis'. I have one that is fairly horizontal but is only 5 years old. I got it from Dawes and it matches their pictures.

http://www.stanleyandsons.com/product/fag-0185/fagus-sylvatica-miltonensis.html

https://dawesarb.arboretumexplorer.org/taxon-22049.aspx