I live in South Eastern Wisconsin and I have five maple trees. Two are Sienna Glen Freeman Maples and three are Autumn Blaze Maples. On the South side of the house I have three of the maples spaced about 30 feet (two Autumn Blaze and one Sienna Glen Freeman) apart from each other. These trees cover the whole south side of the house from the South East corner to the South West corner. The whole idea of these trees is to provide shade for the house. The other two trees are on the North West corner of the house and don't really do anything. They are a good 50 feet from the house. They're just there because trees are cool and I like them.

What I would like to do is plant another shade tree directly on the West side of the house spaced appropriately from the Maple on the South West side of the house. The idea is to provide shade for the house in the late afternoon/evening when the other three maples aren't shading anymore.

The problem is, is that I do not want to block my view out of the window. It's a very nice view and my fear is that once the tree gets really big it'll block the view. I was wondering if I would plant another Autumn Blaze or something else, if I could prune the bottom at some point to keep my view. I figure I would have to the canopy bottom of the tree at about 20 feet for it to not block the view. :( I never planted anything on this side because I always figured anything I put there would block the view.

Preferably I'd like something that isn't messy and grows fast (faster the better). We have the current maple trees because we were told they don't get very many of the seeds. In the past five years that we've had them so far, there haven't been any seeds. I've read that people still get seeds with their autumn blaze, but mine haven't gotten any (so far).

So anyway long story short, are there any good shade trees that I could have a high canopy and not block my view of the western landscape?