I dunno if you thought about this or are doing it, but you could probably save a lot of resources by making the tree hollow and/or using a dirt core.
I'm currently building in two separate worlds (my first time ever playing came 3/4 days ago), on my laptop and desktop. On my laptop, I've got an epic freaking tower that you can see from anywhere within a reasonable distance. I got lost spelunking yesterday, wound up in a volcano, built my way up out the top of it and, boom, there was my tower in the distance. Instant orientation.