where are you.. big city name ...

this can impact length of growing season and hence speed of growth ...

i have found ginkgo to be rather slow in my MI ... especially as compared to a maple ...since you mention it ...

of course.. given the decades.. they all get big .... i suppose success might depend on patience ....

any chance at a pic or two ???

ken

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=Ginkgo+biloba+%27Autumn+Gold%27.&iax=images&ia=images

Thank you @ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5. I'm in Zone 7a (Washington DC). I've also attached a picture of the house in the original post.

yw ....

lot of good firewood there .... if you do take them down ... it doubt its worth anything to the tree guy .... but if you burn .... have him cut it to size.. and then rent a splitter for the weekend or some such ...

i leave plant recs in your your zone to peeps more familiar with it ... i bet the ginks grow much faster there ... and btw.. they are all yellow in fall.. so i dont know why one would need a cultivar name saying so ...

if your curious about their real height.. take your usual shovel.. and measure it.. a lot of them are 6 feet ... set it against the trunk.. and then take that first pic again with that scale and the whole tree.. and you you can get an estimate of their real height.. im think 45 to 60.. if that means anything in the world ...

hate to get rid of them.. but i would also get rid of them ... a similar silver dropped a huge branch on moms house ... new roof.. and a lot of plaster damage in the house ... i had been telling her and dad for 20 years it had to go ... in their 25 by 45 backyard ... whatever ...

ken

these are a disaster waiting to happen

Personally, I would immediately get rid of both and just deal with the lack of shade for a couple decades, but if you must keep one, I would have them both assessed by an arborist to see which to choose. And if you could easily look through my posts over the years you would see that I normally don't recommend getting a certified arborist. But this is a case where you should...and if he/she tells you both have decay, get rid of both. I have had 2 maples, one red, one silver, with the "forked from the base" look of the one on the right, and both split in storms. I was recently shopping for a new tree services provider and reflecting on the money I've spent on my 3 acres in the past 15 years. At least 20K has been dealing with red and silver maples that should never have been planted. Nobody seems to understand that life has tradeoffs anymore. If a tree is 'cheap' and 'fast growing', you might pay for it down the road. Or, more likely, the person you sell your house to LOL. (Sugar maple is probably the least bad of the big maples, but, unless I wanted to tap it for sugar I think I'd find another tree. If you do get one, make sure it has a good root system and that you prune it correctly in the early years.)

(and if the arborist tells you silver maples are long lasting, strong trees, find another one LOL. They are JUNK)

and btw, those are much higher than 30 ft ;-)

I'd do them both at the same time as well so the mess and disruption only has to happen once. And with my tree guy it would be substantially cheaper, too.

@davidrt28 yeah I noticed after taking the picture, wider too. What can I say my casual observations are not good :/

@davidrt28
What trees would you recommend? My priorities are (in order)

1. Not a future hazard
2. Not invasive (roots doing damage to the house, it’ll be 20 odd feet away)
3. Not messy (hate the silver maple branches and spring seed pods)
4. Future Shade (understanding that’ll take years)
5. Looks
6. Kid friendly (strong enough to hang a swing or maybe climb, my wife has strong happy memories of that from her childhood )

I don't see a tree being strong enough for a swing anytime that the kids would be able to use it unless you spring for a large tree which can have more difficulty establishing than a younger tree. And I don't think you'd want to stress a newly planted tree that way.

I simply adore ginko trees and would seriously love to have one. But we just planted an "Edith Bogue" Magnolia, a "Pink Velour"Crape Myrtle and will be planting a Fringe Tree- Chionanthus virginicus.

Try using this link to help you choose the right tree for your needs, there are filters that appear along the side when you click on "more filters" in the search box:

https://mortonarb.org/plant-and-protect/search-trees-and-plants/

ETA: Also suggest going to the National Arboretum and local botanical gardens, (Longwood Gardens, Lewis Ginter) and see what trees strike your fancy--you'll see them in their mature sizes and get a good idea of their ultimate size.

Yeah I’m with Ken. Those look like 50 footers

I only have so much mental energy available for Houzz/GW and in this case, I will address recommended trees, but sometimes I just don't have time...also, recommendation is increasingly fraught with the nature of climate change and ecological uncertainty, like new and emergent pests. My garden is full of the damn lantern flies right now. I have no idea what they could be damaging.

More important, really, is that you get a tree that was well grown and plant it correctly. So...one that doesn't have a huge knot in the root system that will cause a failure 5-10 years in the future. And that was freshly dug when you bought it, not sitting in a container for years. If you get a smaller one...that you know how to fix tangling roots. Until Houzz has a better way of me tagging/locating my older posts about this, sorry, I just gotta say, "google it". But here is an axiom I'm happy to stand behind: MOST NURSERY STOCK IN THE US IS POORLY GROWN. As Anna points out, the ROI on investing in a large tree, diminishes the larger you get. But if there is one nursery in the DC area for _large_ trees, I can recommend, it is this one: http://www.raemelton.com/ They know their stuff. Whatever you buy there, they custom dug with the proper equipment. As for starting with smaller trees, I wouldn't know where to begin...plant collectors like me do a lot of mail order, and one of the mail order places I would have recommended, Oikos, just closed. The reason I would have recommended it is they used to sell an Oak called Quercus X procera that is very fast growing, but forms a sturdy, single trunked tree naturally. Other trees I might recommend off the top of my head, for (reasonably fast) shade:

thornless honeylocust

Ulmus 'Allee/Emer II'

(I guess all the new American elms being sold by Raemelton are considered disease resistant, so those as well)

seedless ginkgo

Lindens

bald cypress

Cedrus atlantica or hardy cultivars of C. deodara

oops - just realized these next 2 might be too messy for you. Are there puff-ball free sycamores?

Norway spruce (kind of disappointed Raemelton sells blue spruce, but with the market still inexplicably demanding those dogs, I guess they have no choice)

MAYBE planetree - they are potentially huge and you would certainly only plant 1 if that were your choice

Just noticed sam hawking a native plant sale this weekend in Alexandria on another forum. I'm all for natives if they fit the bill. Someone there might have small bald cypress trees, for example. https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6173885/upcoming-plant-sales-events-at-botanical-gardens-and-museums#n=1

I would second the Linden tree. I work in Baltimore and the trees they have seem to survive pretty darn well considering how poorly they care for them.

I have a maple that I plan to replace with a native Linden.

https://caseytrees.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/150715-Urban-Tree-Selection-Guide-reduced-size.pdf

A guide to recommended trees in your area

thanks Barbara,

I'm basically ok with their list with a few exceptions:

would avoid all the red oaks (oaks with pointy leaf edges) because of disease susceptibility being higher than white oaks

the oak I mentioned is probably one of the fastest growing white oaks

Fagus grandiflora, IMHO, needs a high quality site and soils. Not a wise tree for much of DC area suburbia with clay backfill soil and certainly not a tree for street planting in most situations.

Also do not agree with Pinus strobus...big ones become a liability in the mid-Atlantic...they simply cannot cope well with heavy snow and ice...I created this thread a while ago about a lone exception I spotted...https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5017515/honestly-assessing-pinus-strobus-in-the-lower-mid-atlantic

Also as nhbabs pointed out on that thread, even in New England, they grow best in a grove

Accolade Elm

I would like to recommend gonativetrees.com and Quercus stellata, it's a nice adaptable medium-sized white oak that will live a long time and contribute to the ecosystem in a big way. I'd also consider a hickory and black gum as strong, long lived, attractive trees. My approach when starting with very small trees is to put the tree into a garden with other perennials or shrubs, with the knowledge that eventually it will get much larger and shade the other plants.

Leaving one or at least part of one for a few years could soften the loss.

Metasequoia is long lived and fast growing but being pyramidal isn't shade tree shape for probably a century. Neat tree and a neat story if u have some google time handy. If you limb it up the trunk grows cleaner and more formal looking.

Quercus coccinea, Scarlet oak has grown well for me.

Acer saccharum, Sugar maple, is a classic choice and I have one that I swear grew six feet this year. Just don't mess up on the latin name and accidentally order a Silver maple. I do like Silver maple out in the right place btw.

Update:

Thank you for the suggestions, I wound up getting rid of the corner silver Maple, the trunk had a significant hollow section in the middle. The tree service said it had started to rot and that it was a good call to remove it.

I replaced it with a Gingko Autumn Gold. I also planted a Cherokee Blaze Dogwood next to the other tree (far side).

I'm planning on giving the new trees a few years to establish (5 maybe) before getting rid of the second Silver Maple.

@davidrt28 (zone 7) I didn't wind up purchasing from Raemelton Farms like you suggested even though I loved their prices and selection. They said they were more wholesalers and would bring the trees over but I'd need equipment to be able to take it off the truck. The 3.5" caliper Autumn Gold tree would've been north of a thousand pounds and even with friends I didn't think I could manage that.