Tree service in Del Valle, Texas

What I see in Del Valle yards

Del Valle grows pecans the way Dripping Springs grows cedar. Bottomland pecans get enormous, and the failure mode is heavy end-weight on long limbs that finally lets go in a storm. Reducing that weight is cheap. Replacing the roof it lands on is not.

The trees I get called about in Del Valle

Colorado River bottomland — pecan above all, plus sycamore, cottonwood and hackberry on deep alluvial soil. These are the biggest trees I work on. Cottonwood is the one to watch: it grows very fast, it's weak-wooded, and it sheds large limbs without much warning. Bottomland pecans, and the thing people actually call about isn't the tree's health — it's the sticky film over everything parked underneath. That's aphid honeydew dripping out of the canopy, and it's cosmetic rather than dangerous. Spraying a sixty-foot pecan for aphids is largely futile and mostly kills the predators that were helping. Park somewhere else in late summer.

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

The ground underneath: river bottom

Deep, well-drained alluvial soil along the river. Pecan and bald cypress country, and the trees get big. The usual problem isn't health, it's end-weight on long limbs nobody's reduced in decades.

Permits in Del Valle

I haven't read Del Valle'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 Del Valle property

Generally open, flat and easy, which is the good news. The bad news is scale — a bottomland pecan can need a bucket or a long climb and a lot of rigging simply because of how much tree there is. Colorado River bottom soil, thirty minutes out, generally with room to work. The trees are the biggest constraint rather than the lots — a mature bottomland pecan is a lot of wood, and that's what the price is measuring.

Questions I get from Del Valle

Getting me out to Del Valle

Del Valle is about a 30-minute run for me. 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.