Tree Service in Cascade Highlands, WA

Dig a post hole almost anywhere in Cascade Highlands and you are through the topsoil in a spade’s length and into rounded gravel. That is old Columbia flood deposit, and it drains beautifully — which turns out to be the whole problem for a sixty-foot conifer in the third week of August.

Winter is not what stresses trees up here. Summer is. Lawn sprinklers keep the top few inches damp and the grass green while the ground under that stays dry from June through October, year after year. Firs and cedars that went in as nursery stock next to a new house now want far more water than a lawn timer was ever set up to hand them, and the ones that have quietly been going short are the ones we end up looking at.

Why the Cedars Are Browning From the Top Down

Western red cedar is a wet-ground tree that got planted across a well-drained terrace, and it shows. The first sign is the leader going rust-colored while the lower half still looks healthy, and the browning works its way down over a season or two. A cedar that has lost its top does not put a new one back. If there is still a solid live crown underneath, we can clean the dead out and you can start watering it seriously. If the top third is gone, the honest conversation is about when it comes out, not whether.

A Douglas Fir Looks Fine Right Up Until It Does Not

Fir hides stress better. The crown thins a little at a time, new needles come in short, the shape stays convincing, and then on a hot still afternoon a limb the size of your arm lands on the lawn with no wind involved at all. By the time beetles are in it, the drought did its work several years earlier. July is the month to stand back and look at your firs — a see-through top and short growth on the last few years of extension are worth a call before winter finds the same tree.

A Dead Conifer Gets Harder to Take Down, Not Cheaper

People often wait, figuring a dead tree can come out whenever. It runs the other way. Standing dead fir goes brittle quickly here — limbs let go, bark sheds, and there is no longer a tie-in point a climber has any business trusting. A tree that would have been a straightforward climb and rig two summers ago becomes a job that needs a bucket or a crane set up in the street. If a conifer near the house is finished, taking it while it still holds a rope is the cheaper decision.

• Removing drought-killed cedars and firs standing over roofs, decks and driveways
• Crown cleaning to get the dead wood out of a fir before the winter storms do it for you
• A written assessment when a buyer, a lender or an association wants an opinion on paper
• Stump grinding in gravel, where the backfill settles more than people expect and wants topping with soil
• Cleanup after wind finds the trees that were already weakened

If you are not sure which of those you are looking at, that is exactly what a free on-site estimate is for. We would rather tell you to water a tree than sell you a removal it does not need this year.