Tree Removal in St. Louis, MO

Tree Removal in St. Louis is mostly a question of space. The city proper covers about 61.7 square miles of land and held 301,578 people at the 2020 census, and a lot of its housing sits on narrow parcels with a brick house in front, a garage on the alley and a mature silver maple, pin oak or hackberry squeezed somewhere in between. Felling a tree in one piece is rarely an option here. Most removals we quote in the city are sectional: a climber or a lift takes the crown down in short pieces, each one lowered on a rope so it lands where it was meant to, and the trunk comes down last in rounds a loader or a strong crew can carry out.

Whose tree is it?

Before anyone picks up a saw, we sort out ownership. The city's Forestry Division says its Tree Section is responsible for more than 80,000 street trees and another 25,000 park trees. A tree growing in the strip between the sidewalk and the curb is generally one of those, even though it shades your porch. City ordinance requires a permit to maintain before anyone prunes, sprays or removes a City Tree, and the city issues those permits only to commercial tree services that meet its requirements. Forestry inspects the site first, usually within five to seven business days, and permits expire 60 days after they are issued. If the problem tree is a street tree, the first call is often to the Citizens' Service Bureau, not to us. We will tell you honestly when that is the case.

What the ground does under city trees

Much of the city sits on limestone and dolomite, and Wikipedia's summary of local geology notes that parts of the city, especially south of downtown, are karst with sinkholes and caves. Combine that with old sewer laterals, basement walls and a century of regrading, and root systems end up shallow and lopsided. When a big tree starts to lean after a soaking rain, or the sidewalk heaves on one side, that is the moment to have someone look at it rather than waiting for a windstorm.

Storms the city remembers

St. Louis lies in one of the most tornado-struck metro areas in the country. On May 16, 2025, an EF3 tornado that began in Clayton crossed the Wydown/Skinker, DeBaliviere Place, Fountain Park, Lewis Place and Greater Ville areas on its way to the river. The National Weather Service measured it at 1.8 miles wide, the widest in the region since 1950. Forest Park Forever estimated that three to four thousand trees in Forest Park alone were knocked down or damaged. North-side blocks were left with snapped trunks hung up in neighbors' trees and roofs, which is the most dangerous kind of tree work there is. If something similar happens again, our first job is to stabilize what is hanging, then clear access, then remove the rest on a schedule that makes sense.

Ash trees and the backlog

Emerald ash borer was first spotted in north St. Louis in 2015. A year later, St. Louis Public Radio reported that nearly one in five trees on city streets was an ash, and that foresters planned to take down about 13,000 public ash while treating roughly 1,000 of the healthiest. Private yards have just as many. A dead ash turns brittle quickly, and climbing one becomes risky within a couple of seasons, so we often recommend removal from a lift or by rigging from a neighboring tree.

Getting a quote

Call (314) 668-1571 or use the form. Tell us your neighborhood and whether there is alley access; that one detail changes how a job is done more than anything else in the city. We walk the property, point out anything that belongs to the city, and give you a written estimate that spells out what is removed, what is hauled away and whether the stump is ground. Get a free estimate