Tree Service in Othello, WA

Othello would be sagebrush and cheatgrass if the Columbia Basin Project had never put water on this ground. Every shade tree in town, every windrow along a field edge, every green lawn out Bench Road sits downstream of a headgate somebody opens in the spring. That is why tree work in Adams County looks nothing like tree work at home.

Home is Kelso, in Cowlitz County, roughly five hours west of here. We keep no yard, no crew and no equipment on this side of the mountains, and we are not going to write a page that quietly implies otherwise.

The Water Table Came Up and Never Went Back Down

Before the canals, groundwater sat a long way below this country. Decades of irrigation seepage changed that. Return flow filled the coulees and channeled scabland north of town with seep lakes and potholes that had no business existing, and it left a lot of low ground around Othello over a perched water table that climbs through the season and drops when the water is shut off.

Trees planted in that ground get two opposite problems in one year: waterlogged, oxygen-starved roots in midsummer, then hard drought the moment the laterals go dry. Salts build up where drainage is poor. A maple living on that thins from the top, holds on for years looking half-alright, then comes apart at a union on a hot afternoon.

Russian Olive Owns the Wasteways

The plant that defines clearing work in this county is Russian olive. It went in as windbreak and wildlife planting, it seeds into anything damp, and it has taken the ditch banks, wasteways and drain bottoms across a wide stretch of the basin. Thorned, multi-stemmed and too thick to walk through, it is closer to clearing an acre of brush that stands twenty feet tall than to removing a tree.

Willow, cottonwood and Siberian elm crowd in behind it wherever water sits. Nobody calls about one of these. They call when a drain has closed in or a fence line has disappeared — a machine-and-days project rather than a truck-and-an-afternoon one.

The Calendar Out Here Belongs to the Crop

Farm ground runs on narrow windows. After harvest and before the next planting, once the water is off and before the ground freezes hard — those are when clearing along a field edge or through a farmstead happens without costing somebody a week of production. Planning that far ahead suits us, because a trip to Adams County has to be scheduled anyway.

It is also exactly why we are no use to you in an emergency. A tree that comes down on a Saturday needs somebody who can be standing under it on Saturday.

• Russian olive, willow and volunteer brush cleared off wasteways, drains and field edges
• Farmstead and shop-yard removals where a row of tired elm or poplar comes out together
• Site clearing ahead of a building pad, a shed, a pivot corner or a fence rebuild
• Crane-assisted removals where a hollow stem stands over a shop roof or a loading area
• Contracted work for processors, storage operations and multi-property managers
• Stump grinding where cleared ground has to go straight back into use

Anything on that list gets walked in person before a number goes on it, and that walk is free. If it does not carry the drive, you will hear so on the phone.