On the Snohomish County side of Bothell the lots sit between newer housing and the Sammamish River trail. Roofs, drives, and the trail corridor move a lot of water. The soils are urban soils: graded, compacted, and quick to grow moss where the sun is weak. City trees are too often the wrong species crammed against the siding. Pruning can buy years. It cannot shrink a big-leaf maple into a courtyard tree forever.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98021
Small trees, close to houses and wires
We clear the roof, the walk, and the neighbor’s driveway. We thin the crown so the gutters are not a solid mat. If the tree is lifting the walk or filling the sewer side with roots, pruning the top does not fix the root, and we will not pretend it does.
Ornamental shrubs in the front get pruned to buds so they do not look shaved. A sheared mound is a choice, and we ask before we make it.
The ground in Bothell
We work the north side of the city, not a pretend second office. Yards are a mix of older ramblers and newer houses with small planting strips and a patio poured on tight fill. Runoff is the theme. A permeable patio or a short drain does more for the foundation than a wider concrete pad.
People here ask for plantings that feed birds and do not need a sprinkler all summer. That fits. Native beds along a back fence, a bark layer that is actually thick enough to suppress weeds, and a lawn that is aerated instead of constantly reseeded. Pressure washing keeps the walks and the siding from going black under the trees. The trail is a nice neighbor and a weed source. Edges need a clean line or the brush moves in.
How we do the work
We thin, we raise, and we take out dead wood. We do not top a tree. Topping makes a bigger, weaker tree and a yearly invoice. If a tree is the wrong tree for the spot, the honest options are prune it correctly or remove it, and we will say which.
Shrubs get pruned at the right time for the plant. A spring-flowering shrub cut to balls in March is a shrub with no flowers. Hedges that are meant to be hedges get sheared. Everything else gets pruned back to a bud or a branch, not buzzed into a cube.
What we look at first
- Dead, crossing, and broken wood
- Clearance over the roof, the walk, and the drive
- Whether the tree is too close to the house to ever be right
- What the shrub is, so we do not cut off the flower buds
Cleanup
Brush hauled, sawdust blown off the walk, large wood bucked if we agreed to leave firewood. We do not leave a knee-high layer of twigs in the beds and call the prune done.
What we will not climb
A tree we cannot tie into safely, a tree into the power lines, a huge removal over a glass house. We would rather walk away than do a dangerous job from the wrong ladder. We will tell you who the job is for.
We do not top
Topping a fir or a maple makes sprouts that are weakly attached and a tree that is taller again in a few years, uglier the whole time. If you want it shorter than pruning can honestly make it, removal is the sentence. We will help you say it.
More from this crew
- Tree and shrub pruning across Snohomish County
- Yard cleanup in Bothell
- Landscaping in Bothell
- Beauty bark in Bothell
- Landscape design in Bothell
- Tree and shrub pruning in Mill Creek
- Tree and shrub pruning in Lynnwood
- Tree and shrub pruning in Brier
Sources for the climate and the water
- USDA plant hardiness map for choosing plants that can take a Snohomish County winter.
- EPA WaterSense on watering less once a lawn or a new planting is established.
- EPA Soak Up the Rain on keeping roof and yard water from becoming someone else’s problem.
