Tree Removal in Amherst, NY

Tree Removal in Amherst is easier to plan because the town has done its homework. A street and park tree inventory prepared for Amherst by Davey Resource Group counted 53,213 street trees and 3,423 park trees. The results describe the same trees standing in thousands of backyards across Snyder, Eggertsville, Getzville and East Amherst, and they point straight at the problems that most often lead to a removal.

Too many Norway maples

Norway maple makes up 28.4% of the town's inventoried trees, more than 16,000 of them. It is tough and shady, but it grows dense crowns, girdling roots and narrow forks that split under load. Silver maple adds another 8.8%. Silver maples grow fast and large, and their wood is weak; a big one beside a house is a common removal request in older neighborhoods off Main Street and Sheridan Drive.

Ash that is out of time

Green ash accounts for 12.3% of the inventory, nearly 7,000 trees. The town has treated many of its own ash against emerald ash borer, and its management plan warns that those trees become vulnerable if treatment stops. Untreated ash on private lots have mostly been infested by now. A dead ash dries out and becomes brittle, and climbing it gets more hazardous every year it stands. If you have one, sooner is cheaper and safer.

Deadwood, decay and weak forks

The inventory found deadwood on 32% of street trees, cavities or decay on 22%, and codominant leaders on 16%. Those three defects are why limbs come down on calm days. When we look at a tree in Amherst, we check the same things: dead limbs over the roof or driveway, hollow sounds at the base, and V-shaped unions with bark squeezed between the stems.

Lindens and wind

The town's tree management plan notes that wind storms in 2020 felled dozens of linden trees, whose shallow roots could not anchor them in their planting spaces. Littleleaf linden is 8.0% of the inventory. If a linden in your yard was planted in a narrow bed next to a driveway or patio, its root plate deserves a look before the next big blow.

Soil that moves

Much of Amherst was originally floodplain and marshland along Ellicott Creek and Tonawanda Creek, and parts of the north and east have had collapsing house foundations from unstable soil. Wet, soft ground matters when a tree comes down: it affects where equipment can go, how a crane is set up, and whether we work from mats to protect the lawn. We plan around it rather than finding out the hard way.

Wires and wood

The town's Highway Department manages all trees, stumps and planting sites along street rights-of-way, and it will trim street trees with low or dead branches when residents call. Your own trees are your responsibility, and so is the National Grid service drop to your house; the utility asks for at least five days' notice to disconnect or sleeve that line before tree work. After a removal, Amherst collects bundled branches up to 4 feet long and under 50 pounds from April 1 to November 30, and schedules large brush or whole trees by appointment. Most customers simply have us chip and haul everything. Get a free estimate