Zone 5. Full, and I mean full, sun. Small portion of the yard. Want shade for the lawn, shade for the porch (which faces it). No service issues on this side of the yard.

Maples and some fir have done well on this street.

What direction does your house face? Would you like sun on the lawn and porch in winter? I have always like red maples (Acer rubrum). Reddish flowers in spring and gorgeous color in autumn. Deciduous so you would have winter sun on porch. Relatively care free.

We put in 2 Shantung Maples last year, and we're in a Zone 6b. They look great now, and I expect they'll get even better as the years pass.

Japanese maple?

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Hurts like a bastid...

A money tree?

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I love my Sycamore but I wouldn't recommend it.
I vote for the tree that grows fast for 2-3 years, and then stays the same size, with a nice umbrella shaped habit, and doesn't give off anything to deal with underneath.

I'm also leaning towards some sort of Maple. This one looks nice-- you could trim it into more of a canopy:
[www.fast-growing-trees.com]{keyword}&gclid=CIGe69W56rgCFexDMgodZmIAmg

I had to think about this for a day. There are so many disease problems and undesirable aspects of so many trees that it is hard to choose. I think I would settle on a ginko (male only) or a beech. These seem to be the most trouble free in my yard.

I'm looking too. My 40 year old Ash tree sucumbed to the EAB and I had to have it removed. It was the primary summer shade for the rear, west facing part of the house.

I'm not sure which way the house faces direction-wise. All I know is it's full sun almost all day. My lawn takes a beating in this area. You can't keep enough moisture in the ground there.

A solar panel on just the side of the house would probably get direct sun 8-9 hours a day.

If you were further south I would suggest mountain laurel, also known as Mescal bean tree. They thrive here in the Texas Hill Country and in the early spring provide some really nice purple flowers and a wonder smell. We have one small laurel that produces white flowers, which is very uncommon.





Here is a link to a nice interactive map that shows what area each zone covers.

[www.plantmaps.com]

Just don't plant it too close to the house. These things get big and the usual mistake is to not anticipate this. I really like the Hawthorne that doesn't have the thorns. Do not, I repeat, do not get a hawthorne that still has thorns, they are super evil. However, the tree is beautiful and has little tiny leaves that shed in the fall, but disappear and don't need to be raked up.

Years ago when we lived just north of Houston we had a 100 foot or so pine tree about 10 feet from the house. According to the foundation company that jacked up our concrete slab, the tree had sucked up so much of the moisture from the ground that it caused the slab to crack. We had it cut down.

Another kind of tree to avoid is the hackberry, which drops lots of really nasty berries all over the place.

I found that thornless hawthorn trees were very prone to get aphids and defoliate. Not a good choice for our area in Iowa. YMMV.