Tree service in New Braunfels, Texas

What I see in New Braunfels yards

The Comal and the Guadalupe give New Braunfels deep bottomland soil and some of the biggest bald cypress and pecan in the region. Away from the water you climb onto the Balcones escarpment and it's live oak and cedar on rock. If your lot is near either river, root zones are shallower and wetter than they look, and equipment access needs thinking about.

The trees I get called about in New Braunfels

Bald cypress and pecan along the Comal and the Guadalupe — some of the largest in the region — and live oak with ashe juniper once you climb onto the Balcones escarpment. Two rivers means a lot of lots where the root zone is shallower and wetter than it looks. The mistake I see most in this town has nothing to do with species: it's soil piled over the root flare. Where the trunk meets the ground it should widen out visibly, like a foot in a shoe. If your tree goes into the ground like a telephone pole, something has been buried — fill from landscaping, or the tree was planted too deep to begin with. Buried flares rot, and they generate girdling roots that slowly strangle the trunk.

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 New Braunfels

I haven't read New Braunfels'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 New Braunfels property

River lots need thinking about: soft ground, steep banks, and often no route for a chipper. Away from the water it's ordinary suburban access. Thirty-five minutes from Kyle. Thirty-five minutes, with river-bottom lots along the Comal and the Guadalupe and escarpment lots away from the water. Near either river the ground is softer and the root zones are shallower than they look, so equipment placement matters more.

Questions I get from New Braunfels

Getting me out to New Braunfels

New Braunfels is about a 35-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.