What routine trimming costs
Most pruning jobs run $225 to $800 per tree. Height, canopy density, and how much deadwood has piled up over the years move the number more than anything else. A young live oak getting its first structural prune, three or four cuts to fix a weak branch union while the wood is still small, sits at the low end. An oak that's never been touched, with years of deadwood and low limbs dragging over a roofline, takes longer and costs more. If you're also getting hurricane prep canopy thinning done, ask about bundling both on one visit, see our hurricane prep page for that pricing.
What this covers, and what it doesn't
Hurricane prep is about wind load, opening the crown so air moves through it instead of pushing against it. Routine trimming is a year-round job with a different goal: tree health and clearance. That's crown cleaning (pulling dead, broken, and diseased wood before it drops on its own), canopy raising (lifting limbs that hang over a driveway, roofline, or walkway), structural pruning on young trees (setting good branch spacing while the trunk is still small enough that the cuts heal fast), and selective view or sun pruning where a homeowner wants a sightline opened without disfiguring the tree. We don't top trees and we don't do a hurricane-style strip job under the name "trim," that's a different, worse thing.
Our process
- Look at the whole tree first, not just the one branch someone called about.
- Pull dead, diseased, and crossing wood. That comes out regardless of what else the job needs.
- Raise the canopy where it's actually in the way, over a roof, driveway, or walkway, not just wherever looks uneven.
- Make structural cuts on young trees now, while a cut is small and heals in a season instead of needing rigging later.
- Follow the oak wilt window on every live oak: no pruning cuts from February 1 through June 30 unless it's storm damage that can't wait, and any wound made in that window gets sealed the same visit.
- Chip brush and haul it the same day.
What makes this harder than a quick trim
Oak wilt is the one nobody around here talks about. It's a fungus that kills live oaks, and it's a much bigger problem in the Texas Hill Country than on this stretch of coast, but the beetles that carry it don't check a county line, and the state's guidance is the same everywhere: don't cut live oak wood from February through June, when the beetles that spread the fungus are most active and drawn to fresh cuts. Live oaks out here grow close together and graft roots underground, meaning a whole street of trees can share one root system. If oak wilt gets into one tree through a badly timed cut, it can move through that graft network into the neighbor's oak, and the one after that. We follow the February-to-June window on every live oak we touch, storm emergencies aside, and we paint any wound made outside a clean window immediately. A second, smaller thing people ask about: Spanish moss. It isn't a parasite. It doesn't feed on the tree it's hanging from, it just uses the branch as a perch, so we leave it alone during a health prune unless you specifically want it stripped for looks.
How long it takes
A single small tree with light deadwood: 30 to 60 minutes. A mature oak needing structural work and canopy raising: half a day. Full-property jobs with several large trees run a full day, sometimes two if we're also doing young-tree structural work across the lot.
One thing that sets this apart
We treat the oak wilt calendar as a standing rule, not a special request. A lot of crews will cut live oak wood any month you ask them to, storms included, because most customers never bring it up. We bring it up first.
We don't do ornamental topiary or hedge shaping. If it's a tree, we'll prune it. If it's a boxwood hedge, you'll need a landscaper for that one.