Tree Service in New Orleans, LA

Tree Service in New Orleans starts with a question most other cities never have to ask so often: is this tree yours or the city's? The Department of Parks and Parkways maintains the trees on neutral grounds, in city parks and in the strip between the sidewalk and the street, and its own count puts the street trees alone at more than 150,000. A live oak that shades your porch may be rooted three feet onto public ground. Before anyone climbs it, that line has to be settled, because the rules for the two kinds of trees are completely different.

If it is a city tree

The city says all public trees are protected under Chapter 106 of the Code of Ordinances, and any work at all on a City tree needs a Tree Maintenance Work Permit. That permit is requested by a Louisiana-licensed arborist, who sends the city a written contract with the address, a copy of the license and an insurance certificate naming the City of New Orleans. The permit is free and runs for 60 days. If you just want the city to look at a public tree, the route is 311 or (504) 658-3200, and the city tells residents to call 911 for a City tree emergency outside its 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. office hours.

If it is your tree

Trees on private lots are the bulk of what we do: thinning live oaks off slate and metal roofs, lifting limbs that drag across a shotgun's side alley, taking down water oaks and hackberries that have started to fail, and grinding the stumps afterward. We look at where the trunk sits relative to the sidewalk and property line on the first visit, so you know which category you are in before you get a quote.

What the public canopy tells us about private yards

The city's ArborPro inventory, published in 2019, counted 104,117 public trees. Crape myrtle made up 28.6% of them and southern live oak 20.6%, with bald cypress a distant third at 5.1%. Private yards follow a similar pattern: lots of small crape myrtles that need little more than a light thinning, and a smaller number of very large live oaks that account for most of the serious work. A live oak that has been growing over a raised house for eighty years is a different job from anything else in the yard, and we plan it that way, with cuts made back to proper branch unions under ANSI A300 practice rather than stubbing limbs at the roofline.

Wind, termites and the trees that fail

Hurricane Ida in 2021 produced a 113 mph gust in New Orleans, per the National Weather Service, and the collapse of an Entergy transmission tower near Avondale left the entire city without power. Most trees that come down in storms here have something wrong with them beforehand. In New Orleans, that something is often Formosan subterranean termites. LSU AgCenter notes the species infests the wood of living trees and describes a New Orleans tree weakened so badly that wind pushed it onto a house. Hollow-sounding trunks, mud tubes on the bark and swarms coming out of a tree in late spring are reasons to have it checked.

A rule change worth knowing

The City Council unanimously approved a new Tree Protection Ordinance on March 27, 2025, after a draft and public comment period run by Parks and Parkways. If you are planning construction near a large public tree, or work that touches one, check the current ordinance with the department before the job is scheduled.

Tell us the address, which trees concern you, and whether anything is touching a roof or a line. We will walk the property, mark what needs doing and leave a written estimate. Get a free estimate