Tree trimming and pruning in Palomino Valley, NV

Palomino Valley runs north of Spanish Springs along Pyramid Highway. ZIP 89510 covers close to 600 square miles and holds only about 680 housing units, so this is acreage country. Nearly every home is owner-occupied, and the trees that matter are the ones people planted and watered near the house.

At a glance

• About 680 housing units across roughly 600 square miles (ZIP 89510)
• About 9 inches of precipitation a year at the Reno 22.2 NNE gauge
• About 28% of households heat mainly with wood
• One estimate can cover every tree on the property

Why is pruning different on dry acreage?

A volunteer gauge in the valley (Reno 22.2 NNE, about 3 miles from the center point of the ZIP) averages 8.99 inches of precipitation a year in NOAA's 1991-2020 normals. A shade tree cannot live on that alone. Trees here survive on a well and a hose or drip line, and when the water falls behind, the tree lets go of branches from the top down and the outside in.

That dieback is what pruning deals with first. The arborist separates wood that is dead from wood that is only stressed, removes the dead, and tells you plainly whether the tree looks able to recover. See drought stress and dieback and watering mature trees in the high desert.

Plan the whole property in one trip

From our yard to Palomino Valley is about 67 minutes without traffic each way. It makes sense to have every tree on the place looked at on the same estimate: the shade trees by the house, the row along the driveway, anything leaning toward a barn, a shop or a fence line.

The estimate is free and written tree by tree. If part of the work is brush, not trees, we also offer lot clearing and brush mowing in Palomino Valley.

What happens to the wood?

About 28% of households in ZIP 89510 heat mainly with wood, the highest share in our service area and far above Nevada's 1% (Census Bureau, ACS 2020-2024). If you would like the larger limbs left for you, say so at the estimate. Every estimate is tailored to the client, and it will state whether wood and chips stay or go.

Fire and open country

ZIP 89510 has no Forest Service community record of its own. The figure for Washoe County as a whole is a wildfire risk to homes higher than 97.2% of US counties. Large perimeters mapped within about 10 miles include the Perry Fire (2018, 51,386 acres) and the Winnemucca Ranch Fire (2017, 4,799 acres).

Around the house, pruning helps by lifting low limbs clear of grass and brush and by clearing branches away from the roof. We prune most deciduous trees in late winter, most conifers in early spring and summer, and dead or hazardous limbs whenever they are found.