Tree Service in Salt Lake City, UT

Tree service in Salt Lake City starts with a simple fact: almost every shade tree here is growing somewhere it would not grow on its own. The valley floor is the old bed of Lake Bonneville, summers bring weeks of 90-degree days with little rain, and the soil is alkaline and full of lime. Big maples, elms, sycamores and spruces survive on irrigation, and stress shows up as dead tops, cankers, borer holes and pale leaves. Add snow loads in winter and the occasional windstorm off the mountains, and you get the jobs we are asked to do most: removing trees that have declined, pruning trees that have grown heavy over roofs, and cleaning up after a storm.

The September 2020 windstorm

On the morning of September 8, 2020, a windstorm with hurricane-force gusts hit northern Utah. Winds topped 100 mph in places, with a gust of 112 mph recorded at the University of Utah, and thousands of trees were toppled. Nearly 200,000 homes and businesses lost power, and the governor declared a state of emergency. Trees that fail in wind like that often show warning signs ahead of time: decay at the base, long limbs with little taper, or roots cut during old sidewalk or sewer work. Storms like that are rare, but they are a good reason to have a large tree near the house looked at before it is tested.

Snow, ice and early storms

Salt Lake City averages around 52 to 60 inches of snow a year depending on where it is measured, and the worst breakage comes from early or late storms that land on trees still in leaf. A wet October snow on a maple that hasn't dropped its leaves can tear out limbs that would have shrugged off the same snow in January. Utah State University Extension also notes that multi-stem evergreens such as junipers and arborvitae split under heavy snow, and that thin-barked trees like maple, ash, crabapple and fruit trees get sunscald on the southwest side of the trunk in winter. That dead bark is often where cytospora canker gets in.

Alkaline soil and iron chlorosis

USU Extension puts typical Utah soil pH at about 7.2 to 8.3, with lime that ties up iron. The result is iron chlorosis: leaves that turn yellow or nearly white while the veins stay green. Wet, poorly drained clay makes it worse. A tree that shows it year after year can lose limbs or die. Before anyone prunes or removes a yellowing tree, it's worth asking whether the watering schedule, not the tree, is the real problem.

Park strip trees and city rules

Most street trees in Salt Lake City belong to the city. Urban Forestry says a permit is required before removing, pruning or planting any tree in the public right-of-way, and it issues those permits only to ISA-certified arborists. The city also prunes park strip trees for safety and removes them as a last resort, so a call to (801) 972-7818 is often the cheapest fix. We check this first on every job that involves a tree near the street.

Power lines

Rocky Mountain Power serves Salt Lake City and asks homeowners never to prune or remove trees near power lines. Its crews prune for line clearance at no charge, and the company will arrange a free temporary disconnect of the service line to a house so tree work can be done safely. Call 1-888-221-7070 before any work near a line.

We work across Salt Lake City and the rest of the Salt Lake Valley. The east-side neighborhoods, including the Avenues, Federal Heights, Yalecrest and Sugar House, are full of older homes, many from before World War II, with mature trees, narrow side yards and detached garages off alleys, so most removals there come down in pieces. The Avenues sits on the foothill bench, where slopes and the wind off the mountains change how a tree is rigged. On the west side, in Rose Park, Glendale and Poplar Grove, lots are flatter and access is often easier, though big trees still stand close to houses and power lines. Out in the suburbs, trees planted when a subdivision was built have often grown large enough to need their first serious pruning.