Tree Service in Howard Lake, MN

Tree work in Howard Lake

Howard Lake sits on Highway 12 in southwestern Wright County with the lake right at the edge of town, and it shares the pattern of the whole corridor: an older residential core with mature trees planted close to houses, surrounded quickly by farmland. Being this close to home means we get a lot of the winter work here, and winter is genuinely the right time for a good share of it. We took a standing dead tree off a roofline in town in late winter specifically because the frozen ground would carry the lift and the truck without rutting the yard, which on that property was the difference between doing it in February and waiting until the ground dried out in June. Dead standing wood is also the case where a climb is off the table entirely, so those come down from the lift rather than with a climber tied into wood nobody can trust.

Our shop is at 225 Cokato St E in Cokato, roughly 7 miles away. We do not have an office in Howard Lake and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What that distance actually buys you is that we are close enough to come and look at the tree properly rather than quoting it off a photo and hoping.

Tree Removal in Howard Lake

Standing dead trees are a recurring job in Howard Lake, most of them ash. Those get worked from the lift, and they get cheaper the sooner they are dealt with.

Removal is the biggest part of what we do, and the jobs people call about are usually the awkward ones. If there is no room to drop it, see hazardous tree removal. If it is an ash, ash removal covers the treat-or-remove decision. And if you want a number before anyone comes out, the instant estimate takes about a minute.

A job we did in Howard Lake

The tree was dead through the whole crown, bare white limbs against the sky with no bark left on the upper wood. It stood over the roof of the house with the canopy directly above the ridge. Standing dead wood is the case where a climb is off the table, because there is no way to know what a limb or the trunk will hold until it fails, and by then somebody is tied into it.

Read how we handled it.

What we do in Howard Lake

• Tree Removal: Backyard trees through to hazardous removals that need rigging, a lift, or the grapple truck. If it is leaning over the house, start here.
• Hazardous Removal: The removals with no room to drop. Trees over houses, power drops and tight yards, taken down in sections on ropes.
• Ash Removal: Emerald ash borer is working through the ash in Wright and Meeker counties. Dead ash gets brittle fast, and waiting makes the job harder.
• Emergency Service: Storm damage, split trunks and trees on structures. The phone gets answered and someone comes to look.
• Storm Cleanup: After the immediate danger is handled: hangers, broken tops, fence lines and the wood that is still lying where it landed.
• Tree Trimming: Clearance, crown thinning and structural pruning, timed around the oak wilt window and cut to the collar.
• Stump Grinding: Ground below grade so you can mow, replant, or rework the bed. Chips left or hauled, your call.
• Land & Lot Clearing: Building sites, fence lines, buckthorn and acreage that has grown in. Selective where it should be.
• Emerald Ash Borer: Trunk injection on a two year cycle for the ash worth keeping, and a straight answer about the ones that are not.