Tree Service in Uptown, LA

Tree Service in Uptown New Orleans is mostly about restraint. Much of Uptown was built before 1900 on the higher ground near the river, and the yards that came with those houses have had well over a century to grow trees. A live oak in a front garden on a side street off Magazine can easily spread wider than the lot. The job is usually to keep it there safely, not to make it smaller for the sake of it.

Raised houses and low limbs

Many older Uptown houses sit on piers roughly three to four feet above the street. That puts gutters, galleries and roof edges right where a spreading oak likes to send its long horizontal limbs. What we see most often:

• Limbs resting on or rubbing a roof, wearing through flashing and holding moisture against the shingles
• Long, heavy limbs reaching over a neighbor's house with most of their weight at the tip
• Branches tangled in the service drop that runs from the pole to the house
• Deadwood in the upper crown that drops onto cars parked along the curb

The fix for most of these is reduction pruning: shortening a limb back to a lateral branch big enough to take over, which keeps the tree's shape and avoids the hatracking that leaves an oak sprouting water shoots for years.

The "sliver by the river" and flood-stressed trees

When the levees failed in 2005, much of the riverfront strip from Bywater to Carrollton stayed dry, which is why people started calling it the Sliver by the River. Uptown streets closer to Claiborne Avenue did flood, in places badly. That difference still shows in the trees. Yards that held water for days often lost shallow-rooted species in the years afterward, while the older oaks nearer the river kept going. When we assess a tree back toward Claiborne, we pay closer attention to root health and soil around the base.

Neutral grounds and park trees are not yours to cut

The oaks along the St. Charles Avenue streetcar line, the trees between your sidewalk and the street, and the trees in Audubon Park are all City trees. Parks and Parkways maintains them, and any work on one requires the city's Tree Maintenance Work Permit. If one of those trees is dropping limbs on your property, the route is a 311 request. We can handle the private trees next to them, and we will tell you plainly when a limb you want gone belongs to the city.

Audubon Park as a reminder

Audubon Park, about 350 acres laid out largely to a design by John Charles Olmsted, lost a few of its old live oaks to Katrina's winds even though the park did not flood. Big, well-anchored trees can still fail when a storm stacks up long limbs with a full load of leaves. That is the reason we favor periodic thinning and weight reduction on the largest Uptown oaks instead of waiting until something breaks.

Removal in tight quarters

When a tree does have to come out, Uptown lots rarely offer a clear drop zone. Shotgun doubles sit a few feet apart, side alleys are narrow, and the street may be the only staging area. Removals here are usually done in pieces, lowering each section on ropes, and sometimes a crane is the safest option. Parking and street use are part of the plan we put in writing.

Call (504) 384-7694 with the address and a description of the tree, and we will set a time to look at it together. call (504) 384-7694