Tree Removal in Marietta, GA

Tree removal in Marietta is mostly a question of where the pieces can go. A pine that has grown well past the roofline of a two-story house cannot simply be cut at the base when a deck, a fence or a neighbor's garage is inside its fall zone, so it comes down from the top. A climber or a lift takes the limbs first, then the trunk in sections, and anything too heavy or too close to a structure is tied off and lowered on a rope. On a sloped backyard, the route to the street for logs and brush is planned before the first cut, since dragging heavy wood across wet red clay is how lawns get torn up.

Signs a tree should come out

Some cases are clear: a dead tree, a trunk split down a fork, a fresh lean with soil heaved up on one side, mushrooms or soft wood at the base, or a pine with beetle pitch tubes up and down the trunk. Others need a closer look, such as an oak that has dropped large limbs two summers in a row, a tulip poplar shedding bark in sheets, or a healthy tree that has simply outgrown a small yard. We tell you what we see, and if pruning, cabling the weak spot or simply watching the tree for a season would solve the problem, we say that instead.

Trees damaged by construction

New additions, pools, driveways and sewer work are common in established Marietta neighborhoods, and they often cut or crush roots in the top foot of clay where most of a tree's absorbing roots grow. The Georgia Forestry Commission lists root damage from construction or trenching among the warning signs tree owners should check for. The decline can be slow: thinning at the top, dead branches, then insects. Pines stressed this way also attract Ips and black turpentine beetles. If a tree near recent work is fading, removing it before it dies is usually safer and simpler than waiting until the wood turns brittle.

Ash trees in Cobb County

The Georgia Forestry Commission reports that emerald ash borer was first found in Georgia in DeKalb and Fulton counties in July 2013 and turned up in Cobb County in 2014. Ash is not the most common yard tree here, but where one stands near a house or the street, a thinning crown or woodpecker damage is a reason to decide early. Dead ash dries out and breaks unpredictably, which makes climbing and rigging it riskier.

Wires, streets and neighbors

We do not cut near energized lines. Cobb EMC asks people not to touch or go near a tree touching a power line and will consider removing trees within 15 feet of its primary wire; inside the city, Marietta Power handles its own lines. We remove the rest of the tree once the line is safe. If a tree stands along the street or near a property line, we point that out before quoting so ownership is clear, and if the job is part of grading or new construction, we suggest checking with the City of Marietta or Cobb County first.

The wood, the brush and the stump

You choose what happens to everything that comes down: logs left in rounds for firewood, cut and stacked, or hauled off; brush chipped, with the chips left as mulch or removed. The stump is its own line on the quote. Many people have it ground the same day, while others leave it and decide later.