Every neighborhood has one: the back quarter of a lot that went wild a decade ago and now nobody goes back there. Buckthorn, box elder, wild grape strangling a fence, a few volunteer trees that got serious about it. Clearing is the job of taking that from jungle back to ground you can use.

What we clear

Fence lines. Trees grown into and through fencing, cut out without wrecking what's left of the fence, and the line opened up so a new fence can actually go in.
Overgrown corners and back lots. Brush cut, saplings dropped, everything chipped on site.
Building and garage sites. Trees down, stumps ground, the footprint left clean for the contractor.
View and light corridors. Sometimes clearing is three ugly volunteers and a wall of brush, and the yard doubles in size.

What happens to all of it

Brush and limbs go through the chipper, and the chips either leave with us or get spread where you want them, which on a cleared lot is often the honest answer for mud control. Trunk wood is hauled or stacked. Stumps get ground if the ground is staying lawn, or left low if a machine is coming to dig anyway. Say what the land is for and we finish it to match.

What we don't do

We're a tree crew, not an excavator. Grading, digging, and hauling soil are someone else's trade, and we'll say so instead of doing it badly. What we hand your contractor is a lot with nothing woody standing on it.

Two things worth knowing

If the clearing runs along a property line, be sure where the line is before we cut. A survey stake costs less than a neighbor dispute over a tree that turned out to be theirs.
Winter is a fine time to clear. Frozen ground carries equipment without rutting the lawn, the brush is bare and easy to work, and the calendar is easier to book.

Scope drives price, so this one always starts with a walk. We look, we talk through what stays and what goes, and the number shows up in writing. The number is the price.

Walking the lot before we cut

The walk is where the job gets decided, so come along. Overgrown ground almost always has something worth keeping in it: a straight young oak lost in the buckthorn, a hickory nobody knew was back there, a stand of sumac that's the only thing holding a slope together. What stays gets flagged with tape before a saw starts, and once it's flagged it doesn't come down by mistake. Say what you want the ground to be afterward, lawn, garden, gravel pad, and the flags follow that.

The same walk sets the number. Density first: a corner of brush and saplings is a different day than a quarter acre of thirty-foot box elders. Then how many stumps need grinding, how close the chipper can get to the work, and whether the truck can reach the pile or everything gets dragged out by hand. Chips left on site cost less than chips hauled, and on cleared ground they're usually the better result anyway.

Spring mud is the worst time for this. Wet ground ruts under a loaded wheelbarrow, never mind a truck, and a lot cleared in April can look worse in May than it did before. If the calendar lets you, late summer, fall, or a hard freeze all beat a thaw.

The day itself goes from small to big. Vines and brush come down first so we can see what we're doing, then the saplings, then the trees, each with room to fall now that the ground is open. The chipper runs steady at the edge of the lot and the pile never gets ahead of it. When we're done you can walk the whole thing end to end, usually for the first time in years.