Tree service in Bastrop, Texas

What I see in Bastrop yards

They grow here because of a clay layer sitting under drifted sand, holding just enough water. The 2011 Bastrop County Complex Fire took roughly 95% of Bastrop State Park and more than a million of those pines, and over two million seedlings have gone back in the ground since. What that means for a Bastrop homeowner today is a lot of fifteen-year-old pines planted too close together, plus surviving veterans with fire scars at the base. Pine is not oak — different pruning, different decay, different risk. Don't let anybody treat it like a live oak.

Source: TreeFolks — Reforesting the Lost Pines.

The trees I get called about in Bastrop

Loblolly pine — the Lost Pines — plus post oak and blackjack on the rises and big hardwoods down along the Colorado. Pine is the reason to hire somebody who has worked on pine. It compartmentalizes decay differently from oak, it bleeds resin from every cut, it can't refoliate from old wood the way a live oak can, and a topped pine is a dead pine on a delay. Post-fire trees are the other Bastrop specialty: a pine that survived the 2011 burn can carry hidden decay behind a scarred face for years.

How to tell these species apart, and what goes wrong with each one.

The ground underneath: Post Oak Savannah

Thin acid sandy loam over a dense mottled claypan. Post oak and blackjack oak dominate because they tolerate it. Water perches after a hard rain and then disappears in a drought, and that cycling is hard on trees.

Permits in Bastrop

I haven't read Bastrop's ordinance closely enough to summarize it here, and I'm not going to guess at a rule that could cost you a mitigation bill. Call the city's planning or development services department and ask two questions: what trunk diameter triggers a permit, and is there a protected species list.

I have verified the rules for Austin, Kyle, Buda and Dripping Springs — those are written up here, along with how to measure your trunk properly, which every one of these ordinances depends on.

Working on a Bastrop property

Big wooded lots, generally good access on the sand, though the reforested areas are dense enough that getting to one tree means working past twenty. Forty minutes out, so I batch Bastrop work where I can.

Questions I get from Bastrop

Getting me out to Bastrop

Bastrop is about a 40-minute run for me. At that distance it works best batched with other work out that way, so give me a little notice if it isn’t urgent. Call or text me a photo with something in frame for scale and I can usually give you a number without driving out. Estimates are free either way.

One rule that applies everywhere, including here: don't prune oaks between February 1 and June 30. Here's why.