Tree Service in Saint Paul, MN

Tree service in Saint Paul starts with history. Dutch elm disease has killed hundreds of thousands of the city's elms since the late 1960s, according to Saint Paul Forestry, and many of the trees planted to replace them were ash. Then, in May 2009, the first known emerald ash borer infestation in Minnesota turned up in Saint Paul's South Saint Anthony Park neighborhood. The city spent the next fifteen years taking out its boulevard ash and finished removing ash from the public right-of-way in 2024, after 26,932 trees. Back yards are a different story: the city's own 2024 report says thousands of ash still stand on private property and parkland. Add oak wilt in the Highwood and Battle Creek oaks, about 51 inches of snow in a normal Twin Cities winter, and summer thunderstorms, and most of what homeowners call us about makes sense.

Your tree or the city's?

The strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb is the boulevard, and Saint Paul Forestry treats boulevard trees as publicly owned. Any work on one, including trimming, removal, treatment, stump removal or planting, needs an approved Forestry permit. The permit is free, Forestry inspects the tree first, and the work is at the applicant's expense. Since January 2024 Forestry has pruned boulevard trees on a cycle and no longer handles most complaint-based pruning requests, except trees blocking a stop sign or signal, trees touching a building, or trees with a defect staff judge urgent. If the tree that bothers you is on the boulevard, we tell you before quoting and help you understand the permit route.

Ash trees that are still standing

Saint Paul Forestry now describes the city as totally infested with emerald ash borer. An ash in a back yard that has not been treated is very likely infested whether or not it looks sick yet. Watch for a thinning crown, dead branches at the top, sprouts along the trunk and pale patches where woodpeckers have flaked off bark to reach larvae. Dead ash dries and turns brittle, which makes it harder to climb and rig the longer it stands. The city's 2024 EAB report also expects increased enforcement of its dangerous tree ordinance, under which Forestry can order a diseased or dangerous private tree removed within 30 days.

Oaks and the spring pruning ban

Oak wilt is mainly a red oak problem in Saint Paul, concentrated in the Highwood and Battle Creek area, according to Forestry. Sap beetles carry the fungus to fresh wounds, so the city advises against pruning oaks from April through October, and the University of Minnesota Extension rates April through July as the highest-risk window. Winter is the safe season. A red oak infected through a branch can wilt and die in as little as four weeks, and the disease spreads to neighboring oaks through grafted roots, mostly within about 30 feet. That is why oak pruning on our schedule happens in the dormant months.

Snow loads, storms and alley limbs

A normal Twin Cities winter brings about 51 inches of snow, and an early fall snow sits heavy on branches that still carry leaves. In summer, thunderstorms do the damage: storms on June 21 and 22, 2013 brought down or damaged more than 500 public trees in Saint Paul alone, along with many private ones. Long limbs reaching over a garage roof, a split leader on a silver maple, or an old spruce leaning over the alley are the pieces that fail first. Thinning and shortening them in the dormant season costs far less than cleaning them off a roof.

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Where the wood and brush go

Saint Paul's yard waste service does not take woody pieces more than three inches wide or three feet long, and it does not take stumps, so most tree jobs produce more than the cart can handle. Ramsey County's free yard waste sites accept branches at several locations for residents, but businesses hired to haul yard waste are not allowed to use them. All of Ramsey County is also inside Minnesota's emerald ash borer quarantine, which regulates moving ash logs, branches, chips and hardwood firewood. Before we start, we agree with you on what leaves your yard and what stays: chips for your beds, logs in rounds, or everything hauled off.

What we look at on a visit

• Species and condition: dead wood, cracks, decay, lean, ash borer or oak wilt signs
• Whether the tree is on your lot or on the city boulevard
• What is underneath: house, garage, fence, alley, neighbor's yard
• The service wire and any overhead lines running through the canopy
• Access from the street, the side yard or the alley
• Brush, logs, chips and the stump, each as a line on the written quote

Saint Paul itself is most of our work: the Summit Hill and Cathedral Hill blocks with their big old trees, Highland Park, the Highwood and Battle Creek oaks on the southeast side, the East Side and Dayton's Bluff, Como, the North End, Frogtown, Hamline-Midway, Saint Anthony Park and the West Side flats and bluffs. Beyond the city line we cover the rest of Ramsey County, including Roseville, Falcon Heights, Lauderdale, Maplewood, North St. Paul, Little Canada, Shoreview, Vadnais Heights, Arden Hills, New Brighton and White Bear Lake, and nearby Dakota and Washington County communities such as West St. Paul, South St. Paul, Mendota Heights, Inver Grove Heights, Oakdale and Woodbury. The trees and pests are much the same across the east metro; the rules are not. Each city decides who owns the street trees, what it does about diseased trees on private lots and how residents get rid of brush, so each area page covers what we know about that place.