Tree Trimming & Removal in Port Richey, FL

Port Richey is one of the smaller incorporated cities in Pasco County, but a lot of its homes back up to water. Canals branch off the mouth of the Pithlachascotee River and lead out to the Gulf, and many streets west of US-19 are lined with houses that have a seawall in back and a mature oak or a row of palms in front. Inland from the coast, the blocks between US-19 and Ridge Road hold older single-story homes with big pines and laurel oaks that have been growing for forty or fifty years.

That combination means two very different kinds of tree work show up on the same street: delicate pruning and removals squeezed between a house and a dock, and straightforward but heavy removals of tall pines in an ordinary backyard.

The hardest Port Richey jobs are usually on canal lots. A tree growing near the water often leans toward the light over the canal, and there may be a boat lift, a dock or a neighbor's pool cage in every direction it could fall. Heavy machines can crack a seawall cap or sink in soft fill, so on these properties we plan the work around keeping weight off the back of the lot.

• The bucket truck stays on the street or driveway and reaches over the house where it can.
• Limbs and trunk sections are roped down in small pieces instead of felled.
• Wood is carried or winched to the front for chipping and loading, keeping the yard and seawall clear.

When the job is done, our debris removal crew rakes and blows the yard and driveway so nothing ends up floating in the canal.

Sabal palms handle salt spray well and are everywhere in Port Richey, along with queen palms and tall Washingtonia palms near the water. Palms do not need heavy cutting, but dead fronds, loose boots and seed stalks should come off before storm season, and a palm that has lost its bud will not recover and should be taken down. Our tree trimming work covers palms as well as hardwoods.

Live oaks are the toughest shade tree for a coastal yard and are usually worth keeping with good structural pruning. Laurel oaks and water oaks are shorter lived and more likely to rot at old pruning cuts. Slash pines can be beautiful, but a lone pine that leans toward the house or shows pitch streaks and bark beetle holes is a candidate for tree removal before the next storm decides for you.

Port Richey sits low and right on the coast, so hurricane season is a real concern here, not just a news story. A little work ahead of time goes a long way:

1. Remove dead limbs and hanging branches that will become missiles in high wind.
2. Thin dense oak crowns so wind passes through instead of pushing on them like a sail.
3. Trim palms and clear branches away from roofs, gutters and service lines.
4. Take down trees that are already leaning, cracked or rotting at the base.

After a storm, flooded yards and broken trees go together. We cut trees off roofs and fences, clear driveways, and haul away limbs, logs and storm-tossed brush with brush clean up. Leftover stumps can be ground out once the ground dries with stump grinding. Trees that soaked in salt water should be watched for a few months, because some decline slowly after the water is gone.

We cover the city of Port Richey itself and the unincorporated neighborhoods with Port Richey addresses, from the waterfront streets along the river mouth to the subdivisions east of US-19 out toward Little Road and Bayonet Point. Our crews are in this part of Pasco often, working in New Port Richey just south and Hudson to the north, so a Port Richey job fits easily into the schedule.

FTDF Services is a Tampa company that serves roughly 100 miles around the city, and west Pasco is one of our busiest areas. You can call on weekdays or weekends, anytime from sunrise hours at 6 AM to the 10 PM cutoff, and we can explain the plan in English or Spanish. Our gear is sized for both canal-lot finesse and big backyard pines: a bucket truck, a loader with a log grapple, a compact track loader, a stump grinder and chainsaws, with a dump trailer to take the wood away. There is no charge for coming out to look and price the job.