Photographing a tree

I've never thought the live oak in our front yard was especially attractive. It is a little gangaly, but this year its leaves have come in fuller than usual. I trimmed it along the bottom and I think that it looks pretty nice. Now the problem is that I don't really know anything about taking a picture of a tree. Trees are so used to being in the background of pictures that I don't really know how to let people know that it's the tree they are supposed to be looking at