Look at the tree!

Seeing as it's the title of the film and the central metaphor, it's a little strange we don't see much of the tree, mostly just some branches outside the window before it's cut. When Johnny says, "Look at that tree, see where it's coming from!" we don't get to see it. Likewise when near the end of the film Francie says, "Look at the tree, it's growing again!" we don't get to see it either. Yet we do briefly see it, uncut, in the early scene where the repairman is working on the clothesline post, and that's the only time the set with the backs of the tenements gets used. Why not use that set to show the tree hacked down, and later having grown again? It would have been far better to see it, cut down and later revived, than just get told about it.

"I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken."