Tree removal in Gardnerville Ranchos, NV

The Ranchos is the largest community in the Carson Valley, with about 12,100 residents and nearly 5,000 homes south of Gardnerville. About 86% of those homes are detached houses on their own lots, and about 28% were built before 1980.

At a glance

• Median home built in 1987: yard trees are now about forty years old
• 21 fires of 300 acres or more mapped within about 10 miles since 1980
• About 5% of households heat mainly with wood
• About 26 miles and 36 minutes from our yard without traffic

What happens to a tract when its trees turn forty?

They all mature together. A street planted in the late 1970s or 1980s has trees of similar age and often the same few species, so the problems arrive in a wave: tops dying back, large limbs over two properties, trunks that have swallowed a fence line.

Some of those trees have decades left with good pruning, and a certified arborist will say so. Others were short-lived species to begin with. Poplars and willows, for example, grow fast and decline early, as our pages on the Lombardy poplar and the weeping willow explain. When the trunk or the root plate shows decay, removal is the usual answer. The arborist looks for the signs described in root and trunk decay.

Which removal method suits a Ranchos lot?

Lots here are generally wide enough for a truck to reach the front yard and sometimes the side. That lets us use the 75-foot Altec boom truck for many front and side-yard trees. Back-yard trees behind a fence are climbed, and a large tree hanging over a house is a crane job. The arborist chooses on the estimate visit after looking at the tree, the overhead wires and the ground a machine would stand on.

How close have large fires come?

Since 1980, 21 fires of 300 acres or more have a mapped center within about 10 miles of the Ranchos, more than for Minden or Gardnerville proper. They include the 2020 Numbers Fire at 18,380 acres, the 1984 Indian Fire at 17,771 acres and the 2017 Preacher Fire at 5,386 acres.

The Forest Service ranks the community's risk to homes higher than about 93% of US communities. About 66% of buildings are in the indirect exposure zone and about 19% in the direct zone. If your lot is on the outer edge, facing open sagebrush, a dead or dying tree is fuel that embers can find. Removing it is basic preparation.

Can I keep the wood?

Ask. About 5% of Ranchos households heat mainly with wood, a higher share than in Minden or Gardnerville, so it is a fair question here. Tell the estimator if you would like the trunk left on site or everything hauled, and the estimate will say which. Our guide on what happens to the wood and chips covers the options.

What will the estimate cover?

The method, the clean-up and anything you ask to add, such as grinding the stump. It is free, detailed and written for your property.