Tree Service in Springfield, MO

Ask anyone who lived here in January 2007 about Tree Service in Springfield and you will hear about the ice storm first. Up to about 1.5 inches of ice built up across parts of the Ozarks between January 12 and 14, and at the worst point 75,000 of City Utilities' roughly 106,000 customers had no power. Limbs that had grown out over lines for years came down all at once. That storm still shapes how we look at a Springfield yard: where would this limb land if it carried an inch of ice?

The 2025 windstorm was a different kind of test

On the morning of April 29, 2025, the ASOS at Springfield-Branson National Airport measured a 90 mph gust, and City Utilities reported about 50,000 outages at the peak. Ice loads weak unions slowly; a straight-line wind like that one snaps whole tops and uproots trees in wet soil. After that storm the city waived brush fees for a stretch and sent big trunks and root balls to a burn site at the Noble Hill landfill. Different storms find different weaknesses, so a good pruning plan here covers both: thin and reduce heavy horizontal limbs for ice, and remove deadwood and cracked leaders that a gust will find.

Who owns the wire, and who trims near it

City Utilities clears its own primary lines and aims for about 15 feet of clearance with nothing hanging over the wire. The service line that runs from the pole to your house is the owner's responsibility. CU will disconnect and reconnect that service line at no charge if you give two business days' notice at (417) 863-9000, which is how we prefer to work when a limb is wrapped around a drop. Primary lines are another matter. Missouri's Overhead Power Line Safety Act keeps unauthorized people at least 10 feet away, and CU runs a free assist program through its Tree Management office at (417) 874-8157 where a utility crew stands by while the owner's contractor prunes or removes the tree.

Rentals, older neighborhoods and karst

Census figures put Springfield's owner-occupied rate at 43.9%, so a large share of the houses we look at belong to landlords who do not live on site. We send photos and a written quote that a property manager can approve from anywhere. The older registered neighborhoods, Rountree, Phelps Grove, Midtown, Woodland Heights, Grant Beach and others, carry mature street-side oaks and maples over narrow lots and alley garages, where a removal often has to come down in short pieces. Ground matters too. City estimates count about 360 sinkholes inside Springfield and more than 2,500 in Greene County, and a 2020 collapse in Rountree took out a homeowner's mailbox and part of a driveway. We look at the soil around a leaning tree before we park a truck near it.

Typical Springfield jobs

• Clearing limbs off service drops after scheduling a CU disconnect
• Ash removal or treatment decisions, since emerald ash borer was trapped in a southwest Springfield greenway in 2018
• Taking out Bradford and other Callery pears, which split apart in storms
• Crown reduction on big pin oaks and silver maples over roofs
• Storm cleanup with brush cut to the Yardwaste Recycling Center's size rules
• Stump grinding after removals in tight backyards

Getting a quote

Call (417) 374-2037 or send the form with your street, a photo or two, and whether the tree touches any wire. We walk the yard, mark each tree, and give you a written estimate before any work is scheduled. Get a free estimate