Tree Service in Shreveport, LA

Tree Service in Shreveport means working in a city that grew out of a forest. Shreveport was founded in 1836 where the Red River met the Texas Trail, after Captain Henry Miller Shreve's crews cleared the Great Raft, a log jam roughly 180 miles long that had choked the river. The pine forests, bottomland and bayous that surrounded the early town still ring the city today, and many of the trees standing over Shreveport roofs are older than the houses beneath them.

Two seasons that test trees

Shreveport averages a little over 51 inches of rain a year, with April the wettest month, and it logs around 91 days above 90 degrees. Spring and summer bring the severe thunderstorms, hail, straight-line winds and tornadoes that this part of the country knows well. Winter is shorter, but it is not harmless: the city averages about 35 days at or below freezing, and ice and sleet storms come through often enough that most homeowners have seen a limb fail under a glaze of ice. Those two stresses shape most of what we do here. In late winter we look for weak unions and overextended limbs before spring storms load them. In summer we watch for heat and drought stress, which tends to show up as thinning crowns and dead wood at the top of the tree.

Older neighborhoods, mature canopy

The city's established neighborhoods, such as Highland, South Highlands, Broadmoor, Pierremont, Queensborough and the streets around Cross Lake, carry much of its large-tree canopy. Big trees on small or mid-size lots mean limbs over roofs, driveways, fences and the neighbor's yard, and roots near foundations, walks and sewer lines. On those properties, the work is usually careful pruning rather than removal: clearing roofs and chimneys, raising low limbs over the street, and thinning dense crowns so wind passes through instead of pushing. When a tree does need to come down, it often comes down in pieces, lowered by rope, because there is no room to drop it.

What Shreveport homeowners call us for

• Pruning to clear roofs, gutters and service drops, done to ANSI A300 practice rather than topping
• Removal of dead, split or leaning trees, including sectional takedowns over houses
• Storm cleanup after wind, hail or ice, starting with the limbs that are still hanging
• Stump grinding so a yard can be leveled and replanted
• Tree health checks for trees that leafed out thin, dropped limbs or have fungus at the base
• Clearing overgrown fence lines, alleys and back corners of older lots

Power lines and trees near the street

SWEPCO keeps the primary, secondary and neutral wires on its poles clear of trees, and you should leave anything touching those wires to its crews. The service line from the pole to your house is a different story: SWEPCO puts that on the property owner and will disconnect it for the work if you call at least two working days ahead, so we plan pruning around that appointment. Trees in the neutral strip between the sidewalk and the curb are normally maintained by the property owner too, but the city's forestry crew will come look at one and advise you, and it handles dead limbs and dead trees in the right-of-way itself. Call 318-673-6330 if you are not sure whose tree it is.

Getting an estimate

Call (318) 309-7506 or send the form with your address and a photo or two. We come out, look at the tree with you, and leave a written quote that spells out the cutting, hauling and stump work. Get a free estimate