I like how you think.

Is the existing American Persimmon male or female? Does it fruit?

I wouldn't move the existing tree. Persimmon don't take well to being transplanted. No need to stress out about how close the two persimmon have to be together for pollination. Male American Persimmon are good, low mess, shade tolerant trees you can stick near a house or tuck into a slightly shady spot.

In theory you should have some evergreen north of the house to block north winds.

Stick something bigger west of the parking lot to shade it and keep it from heating up on summer afternoons...an American persimmon, red maple or tulip tree. More important then having something to the north.

I also think I you could stick some catalpa, oak or tulip tree south of the septic tank. They would eventually get big enough to block some sun. The redbud can go between the house and the septic tank or along the road. People are too paranoid about trees near septic tanks nowadays.

How much space between the house and the leech field? How far does your land extend beyond the leech field?

Not sure I like the fast growing tree between the silver maple and oak in the lower right corner. Silver maples are pretty fast growing...both trees will grow fast, crowd each other, then die around the same time. If anything, you'd want something shade tolerant and slow growing in that spot. Perhaps you could put a redbud or sugar maple?

Remember. Fast growing usually means "short lived" and "drops branches in storms". You want to alternate fast growing and long lived/shade tolerant trees,.

You are not going to like this, but I would strongly recommend redrawing the plan to scale. Graph paper and compass are easiest if you don't already know a good drawing program. Then you can add the expected canopy size at different times and see what you get. Looking at this drawing, I'd be afraid that when you took actual trees out into the actual yard and tried to space them, they wouldn't all fit.

ed, thanks for your input. Your actually thinking along the same lines I am. A number of the things you suggested are things I'm considering or have considered. You also brought out some point I should have mentioned in the original post. Regarding the Persimmon, it's the youngest tree out there, it just went in this spring, if I'd have had a plan then like I have now I would have moved it 8 ft to the North. Either way it's too young to know the gender, no flowers yet. Hopefully it will be female and the one near the house will be male.

Regarding the parking lot. I totally agree, the west side would make much more sense with a large tree. Unfortunately, I have to keep that spot open. The internet here is wireless and requires unobstructed line of site to the tower, and that spot is our line of site. I'm keeping that and on other spot open. Hopefully with two spots I can mitigate any future obstructions from obstacles on other properties. Also I really like Tulip and would put a tulip on the north side of the parking lot but that's an unobstructed high wind spot. I've seen a number of tulips with significant wind damage around here. And they were much more protected than anything in that spot.

Regarding the septic there's 30ft from the edge of the Patio/Sidewalk to the drain field. The tanks (there are 2) are between the house and the field roughly centered between the garage and the patio. Maybe I could get a small ornamental tree like a red-bud in there, but the rest of the family is concerned about feeling claustrophobic and about attracting bees. There's a lilac there now, and it has to go (be moved) because the family didn't appreciate the bee traffic this spring. There's roughly 50ft from the end of the drain field to a corn field. But the end of the drain field is too far out to even dream of casting shade on the house from there.

Regarding the fast growing tree between the Silver Maple and the Chestnut Oak on the South side. Here's my conundrum. Any where else I try to put it will place in near another Silver Maple. I tell ya it's the existing trees that really make this hard. The spacing between this is too wide for just one tree, and it's really tight for two trees across. From things I looked up Autumn Blaze is recommended at 40ft spacing. I was hoping that would translate reasonably with the silver maple and some other fast grower. I'm open to any thoughts on how to rotate them around though. I mean, maybe I could place the Sugar maple where the fast grower is, put the fast grower where the Oak is, put the Oak where the Sugar is. But then the fast grower is still within 43 feet of another Silver Maple.

Well that was my rational. Please feel free to suggest alternatives that I'm not thinking of or understanding properly.

mad_gallica, thanks for your suggestion. This plan is actually to scale. In the target areas for this year every existing tree (except the Persimmon) is perfectly to scale. The future trees in the diagram are positioned based on real world measurements. And there are markers in the ground out there indicating their positioning. I do like the idea of being able to view the actual canopy size on graph paper though. I'll have to think on that one.

Then the numbers are wrong? The southern Fast Growing tree is placed 40 ft from a Silver Maple and 40 ft from a Chestnut Oak. But the line marked 33 ft from a Sugar Maple is obviously longer. Though if you have it laid out in the real world, it will work at some level.

Another suggestion is to divide things up between specimen trees that get enough room to spread out, but others are forest trees that are planted much closer together. I'd definitely do that with the various maples. Also, white pines believe in safety in numbers. As free standing trees, they are very brittle. In packs, the outer trees protect the inner ones.

No the numbers are what's right. The placement of the future trees may not be to scale, but the existing trees are spot on.

Ok so are you suggesting that this should be filled in with more pines? Personally I hate the placement of the pines. They aren't wide enough to make much shade but take up the prime shade locations. But I sure don't want to lose whatever shade they do make and wait many years to replace it. Although I understand that white pine is very septic safe and the one nearest the house on the South side is within 25ft of the drain field (drain field not to scale). So I guess that's probably good placement.

Oh, and take sightlines into consideration. From your porch, from the street, even from inside. I LOVE being able to watch my big metasequoia from my porch or even my couch through the front window during storms. Also I have a LOS on all my other front yard trees.

My Ogon I see whenever I go outback or park.

You still have space for evergreens to the North of the house to block north winds. That would be a good fast growing white pine. Alternatively, you could pair the fast growing tree there with a couple long lived, shade tolerant "understudies". American persimmon, Sugar maple. Or split the difference and plant shade tolerant, evergreen American holly.

I think overall it is a good plan. I still think you could make a better choice than the horrible silver maple. I will have to get pictures of mine, I would remove them if they didn't provide shade.

what ever happened to the catalpa suggestion? I think this would be better than silver maple.

Toronado - I like the idea of metasequoia, fast growth plus long life. A hard combination to find. But it from what I'm seeing it's not a every wide tree, 15ft - 25ft. I tend to consider the Catalpa a narrow tree but it's mature with starts about where the metasequoia ends. I'm thinking a spreading canopy will make a better shade tree. But if you have one maybe you can testify to it's usefulness for shade.

Logan - Yes! catalpa is still in the running. I was thinking that might do well in the spot in front of the house. I might mix it in on the east side too. But the front seems good, we have an amazing view out the front of the house and so I'm thinking a shade tree with a less spreading canopy might offer some shade without hindering the 2nd floor view as much. Regarding the Silver Maple. They are all over the place here. The ones' shown are existing trees, and currently their our best shade providers. So I'm not too excited to remove them. Every house I've lived at as an adult has had Silver Maple in the front yard so I'm used to the down sides, the pain of mowing around huge surface roots and limbs falling all the time. I'm hoping the sugar maple and oak can fill in so that these rather troublesome trees can eventually be thinned away.

ok, great! Glad you are going to remove them (eventually)!

You'll be getting about 7-9 Ch Oak acorns maybe one less Silver Maple? It may be a pain to plant a few and see which are wider (the acorns) they will all get wide in the end. But, it could help. Wow, you have a good plan going. I just kinda went by the seat of my pants in my tree planting. Your idea will give you a mature landscape quicker anyways, but, some of those trees will likely be hampered in maturing (getting wider) by some of the "remove later" trees, they may feel they are in a forest type setting and stay narrower longer. Well, you likely have lots of space for them, it may take a while for that to happen. If you aren't totally done picking Daniel, if you like them what about Sycamore, they are fast growing and strong wooded, maybe a London plane tree if you are worried about Anthractnose. The bark on Sycamore is nicer than London Plane. maybe one for your "Fast growing" place? Later, I can show a pic of my London plane and tell you when it was planted if you need.

You could go with 3 less silver maples. Would work a lot better.

Poaky1: Yeah, I felt like i needed to plan this well. I mean this is a long term commitment. Ya can't just say, ohh opps that was bad spacing well i'll just throw up another 10 your old tree tomorrow to fix it. So I tried to plan well. Anyway, yeah, too close together was my biggest concern with this plan. The existing trees really make the desired spacing hard. If there were just another 10 to 20 feet between the existing trees I feel like I could get the spacing a lot better. If I could do it from scratch I would totally change where the existing trees are so that I could alternate fast and slow growing trees better and space them a little better. If you see any ways to improve the spacing feel free to toss it out there. I did look at Sycamore. I'll have to investigate London Plane too. There's some elm suggestions I need to investigate from another post too. Thanks!

Logan, yeah the silver maples.... They must have been the tree of choice here like 40 year ago. They are EVERYWHERE! I see them at houses all up and down the road.

I agree Logan, but, I am guessing that the mature landscape look is wanted so that's why there is the need for them. I personally would'nt want to have to deal with the stump removal, and the sure to come sprouts from said stump. But, I have seen some Silver maples with pleasing forms, and I was shocked when I saw what they were on closer observation, but, they are still weak wooded even if they can be nicely shaped sometimes. I would go catalpa instead. They aren't exceptionally long lived etc. But, they aren't going to get ginourmous, and you have a bohemoth to cut down eventually, like a Silver maple. They just may be able to still grow among those trees that the Silver maple would need to exit the landscape in favor of. I never liked Catalpa trees before, but, I just started to appreciate their form, sometimes kinda crooked, but a bit charming. Well, sorry Daniel, but, those Silver Maples can get very huge quickly, and unless you have lotssa money, you could be paying a good bit to get rid of them and their stumps/sprouts included. I will be getting some Q. Alba acorns soon, maybe some Q. Velutina in Sept or Oct. Just let me know on here if interested. I know you may not want so many oaks, just offering.

I must get some pictures of my silver maples. If they didn't provide lots of shade, they wouldn't exist anymore. I would go with some sort of freeman maple (I like 'autumn blaze') which are as fast growing as silver maple.

Wow, Logan I'm shocked that you have any Silver maples after you spoke against them to Daniel, but, I guess having them is how you know they aren't great trees in many situations. My parents planted a Red maple when I was in grade school along with 2 Eastern White pines. The Pines grew nice and wide/tall despite growing into the electrical wires and being decapitated several times by the Power Co. The pines are still growing wider every year. Well, the Red maple grew tallish, but, never gave much shade at all. I will say, sometimes trees grow taller and skinnier than trees grown from seeds from the same parent tree. But, this Red maple had been growing about 25 years and wasn't wide and thick enough to shade anything at all. Finally in the 1990's it was struck by lightening, and was eventually cut down. We even waited a couple years to see if it would regrow from any areas of the tree. Then finally got it cut down. There is now a Evergreen Magnolia growing there. What I'm trying to say Logan is I don't think any Maple besides a SUGAR MAPLE is fit to be a shade tree in the maple family. My opinion.

Sugar Maple is definitely the best for providing shade. Also, norway maple (acer platanoides) can provide some good shade. If the OP was looking for something exotic (as in not widely planted) acer platanoides 'royal red' would work well. If I was to plant a shade tree, it would be one of three things: quercus phellos, liriodendron tulipfera, or fagus sylvatica 'purpurea' (I think I spelled that right).

Interesting that you mention the Tulip Tree. It's also one of my personal favorites. I really wish I could figure out how to fit it in. I've kind of given up hope though. It seems like they just don't fair well in the wind and we have mega winds here. It's not strange to have at least one storm per year with 40 to 50+ mile per hour straight winds. Although I keep thinking. Maybe I could possibly get away with a tulip in the south "fast" spot. Between the existing Silver Maple and the Chestnut Oak. Maybe it would get enough protection there from the pines, silver maple, and the house (and eventually from the persimmon). Though I'm sure it would get too big too fast for the persimmon to actually do much for it. Any thoughts there?

Replace the silver maple with liriodendron tulipfera ;)

Ha! Yeah, take any chance to remove silver maple and put something else in right? So....you wouldn't worry about the wind issue? From what I've found liriodendron tulipfera seems to rate anywhere from slightly better, to about the same, to worse that silver maple in wind tolerance.

I have several tullip poplars on another property. Never seen any wind breakage. I have seen 80 MPH winds in the past years, no problem with anything but silver maple. The slightest breeze causes silver maples to drop branches. The only way I would plant silver maple would be to pollard it in the future. Mine are too large to pollard after 60 years.

Hmm, well then it might be worth a shot. I do like a good tulip tree.

Hey guys on another note I'm thinking of adding an Eastern Redbud 15 ft from the north east side of the house. That would place it 15 feet from the house, 15 ft from the magnolia, 25 ft (I think) from the white pine and 25 ft from the "undecided fast" growing tree. Do you think that's packing it in too close. I was thinking maybe it could work since Redbud is generally shade tolerant.

I was also thinking of replacing the one undecided "fast" growing tree on the north side of the house with 2 catalpa spaced 20 ft apart and thirty feet from the house. That puts one of them 25ft from the plumb. I'm thinking maybe that's too close too. But from what I read catalpa spreads to 20 to 40ft. So I'm thinking that's probably too close. Think so?

Catalpa need to be spaced farther. The redbud sounds like a good idea.

I have a handful of Q. Alba acorns Daniel, Most are going to Ed Lincoln, but,I can give you a couple if you want literally a couple though. If you can get locally you should start looking now. Later

Poaky1, thanks, I think I can get plenty of white oak around here. They seem to be quite native to the area, but thanks for the offer.

Ok, so I have another thought on the front of the house. To get two of the catalpa in the front I think I can fit it it I push one over to 5ft from the drive way. I feel like that's super close but this is supposed to be a tree with non-destructive, non-aggressive roots and a mature trunk diameter of 3ft. If I'm thinking right that should leave 4 1/2 feet between the tree and the driveway at maturity. That's really hugging the driveway but it leaves 30ft to the next catalpa and 27ft to the Plumb. Again it's the existing trees that make this tight. If the plumb we're there I'd have gobs of room. I checked the specks on the plumb it should be 10ft - 12ft wide at maturity so I think that will work well with the 20ft - 40ft catalpa. They may just barely connect when both are at full maturity.

So it comes out to two catalpa's at 30ft from the house with the West one at 5ft from the drive way and 20ft from the well, with the next catalpa 30ft away from the first and 27ft from the plumb.

Think that's a workable plan? Too close to the drive way each other and surrounding trees?

I did a yahoo image search, and most of the Catalpas looked as though 40ft of canopy would be a good guestimate. there were a few that looked like they were of exceptional age, and they seemed as if they may have had a canopy of 65-80 ft wide. But, those are likely a rarity. And we'll all (reading this) be gone, (unless someone has a great secret on aging) by the ti me that happens.

Yeah, there are a number of Catalpas along the road I drive every time I leave my house. Most seem to be on the less spreading side of average width. I've seen a few along the road that have a better canopy but it looks like they prefer to be thinner and taller. That being said since someone is offering wild one's maybe I can find the one's that are tending toward being wider.

Also I realized I was thinking wrong about the distance from the drive way. At 5ft planting distance and a 3ft diameter it would be 3 1/2 feet from the driveway at maturity. I think that will be ok with that tree, seems really close but I guess that's farther than the Silver Maples were at the houses we had before and Silvers have mega aggressive roots.

I have looked at images of catalpas as a result of messages on here with you Daniel. I just may get some of those seed pod things from the catalpas and sow them where the deer usually destroy my trees ( or the neighbor) right on the property line.

Daniel, I've got two old silver maples here in central Indiana. They must be at least 75 years old. I'd never plant one because of their reputation and lack of character and no fall color. Oh, and seedlings are a nuisance too. However, mine have held up pretty well to the storms we get every year. In fact, the storm that took out so many trees (including mature oaks) in our neighborhood several days ago didn't harm my largest silver maple and took out only one (8") limb on the smaller silver maple. My 40-year-old walnut suffered more damage, probably because of the full-size walnuts hanging on the limbs when the storm blew through. The neighbor's nearly 40-year-old tulip tree is probably 50 feet tall now and only about 30-40 feet from the smaller of my two silver maples. The tulip is east and somewhat protected by the trees in my yard. It suffered no damage at all.