Tree Service in Nichols Hills, OK

Tree Service in Nichols Hills is mostly about precision. G.A. Nichols developed the city's 1,280 acres beginning in 1929 and hired Hare and Hare, the Kansas City landscape architects, to lay the streets out along the natural terrain. The result is curving roads named after English towns, parks and golf courses woven through the neighborhoods, and lots that have had nearly a century to grow large trees. Most of the work we see here is not clearing land. It is keeping a very old, very valuable canopy safe and in good shape without damaging the beds, lawns, walls and drives around it.

How we approach a Nichols Hills lot

Before any cutting, we look at how the gear gets in and out. Many homes have formal front landscapes, irrigation everywhere and limited side access. On those jobs we plan the drop zones first, protect turf with mats or plywood where equipment has to roll, and lower limbs on ropes instead of letting them free-fall onto shrubs or hardscape. A crane can sometimes be the cleanest way to take out a large tree in a back yard surrounded by pools and structures, because it lifts sections over the house rather than dragging them across the yard.

Pruning to the standard, not to a shape

Large oaks, elms and pecans do best with light, selective pruning: removing dead wood, reducing weight on long horizontal limbs over the roof, and raising the canopy over drives. We follow ANSI A300 pruning practice, which means proper cuts at the branch collar, no topping, and no lion-tailing that strips out all the interior growth. Taking too much at once on an old tree can do more harm than the limb you were worried about.

The 1998 storm and what it taught

On June 13, 1998, the National Weather Service tracked an F2 tornado that crossed May Avenue, overturned vehicles on Pembroke Terrace and caused lighter damage eastward into Nichols Hills, while straight-line winds also struck Nichols Hills and The Village. The broader wind path ran about 16 miles from Lake Hefner to southeast Edmond, and about 40,000 OG&E customers lost power. Big trees with heavy, uneven crowns were the ones that broke. Regular weight-reduction pruning is the most practical defense we know of.

Brush and cleanup

After the October 2020 ice storm, the City of Nichols Hills offered curbside collection of storm trees and limbs and did not require bundling. On our jobs we leave nothing at the curb: wood and chips leave with us unless you ask to keep firewood, and we rake and blow out beds before we go.

Call (405) 679-3042 to set up a walk-through. You get a written, itemized quote that spells out each tree and the cleanup. Get a free estimate