Is a japanese maple a good tree to plant in Indiana?
Japanese Maple can work here, with caveats. Very common in central Indiana front yards and foundation beds, and with Indianapolis in zone 6a the species itself is safely hardy — only the marginal cultivars need siting out of winter wind and afternoon sun. Almost no work on them is removal; it is pruning, cabling, wilt diagnosis, and storm repair.
What you'd be signing up to clean up
Almost nothing that matters — small leaves that break down quickly and light paired samaras that will not clog a gutter. The nuisance is seedlings, since NC State notes the species self-seeds readily and the volunteers come up plain green rather than red, so they get weeded out of beds every spring.
Where to keep it away from
Shallow, fine, and fibrous, spreading well past the trunk and staying near the surface — far too small to threaten a walk, a drive, or a sewer lateral, so it can be ruled out of that conversation immediately. The real risk is severance: trenching for irrigation, a fence line, or a downspout drain inside the dripline is a very common cause of the one-sided dieback that gets called in a year later.
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