A priority list worked around soft spring ground

The lower part of this yard is soft in the spring. That one fact set the order of the entire job.

The pines standing at the base of the tree line and along the outer edge sit on that ground. Roll a chip truck across it in April and the ruts outlast the tree work. In a dry spell in winter there is a window to get in without tearing the grass. Once spring arrives, the pines have to wait until summer for the ground to dry out. So the pines went to day two, and every item that could be done in winter without leaving a mark on the yard went to day one.

Day one, worked down a priority list from highest to lowest:

• The Bradford pear near the house: crossed, dead, diseased and split branches out, specific verticals taken, spread reduced by roughly a third.
• A telephone line freed from a tree near the driveway.
• The second Bradford pear at the base of the driveway, trimmed the same way as the first.
• Two leaners uphill of and off the corner of the house, removed.
• A branch encroaching on the roof, taken back.
• Two small dead trees out of the front bed.
• The tree line cleaned up three to four feet back from the outbuilding and behind the propane tank.

Day two was the pines, and the dead and leaning trees uphill of the house that could reach it. Those were better taken before the leaves came out in spring, and the estimate said so.

It was climbed work throughout. Ladder, ropes, saws, pruners and an axe, with a chip truck and a wood chipper for the debris. No lift went onto that grass at all.

The estimate also said plainly that the crew would get as far down the list as the day allowed. Nine items do not reliably fit into one day, and saying so up front is how a two-day job avoids becoming an argument.