Tree Removal in St. Louis, MO

Tree removal in St. Louis is mostly a question of space. Much of the city was built of brick on narrow lots, with houses a few feet apart, garages on the alley and wires running along the back fence, and many of the trees standing over those houses are now 60 to 100 years old. Taking one down safely means working from the top, piece by piece, with every heavy limb planned before it is cut. Tree Removal Saint Louis does that work across the city and St. Louis County, along with storm cleanup, trimming and stump grinding.

Storms are the main reason trees fail here

St. Louis averages about 48 thunderstorm days a year, and a few storms in recent memory changed how people here look at the trees over their roofs. On July 19, 2006, a derecho swept through the region with gusts near 80 mph, and more than 1.2 million people lost power, the worst outage in Ameren's history; a second storm hit two days later. That November and December, an ice storm knocked out power to more than half a million customers in Missouri and Illinois. On May 16, 2025, an EF3 tornado with peak winds of 152 mph tracked about 12 miles from Clayton and Richmond Heights through Forest Park and into north St. Louis neighborhoods including Fountain Park, Kingsway East, the Greater Ville and O'Fallon. Forest Park Forever counted more than 5,200 damaged trees in the park alone, 3,100 of them toppled or harmed beyond repair.

Most of the trees that fail in storms gave some warning: dead tops, heavy limbs stretched over a roof, cracks where two trunks meet, mushrooms or soft wood at the base, or roots that lifted on one side. Looking for those signs before storm season is the cheapest tree work there is.

Ash trees and emerald ash borer

Emerald ash borer was confirmed in Creve Coeur in August 2015, and it has since spread through the region. The City of St. Louis has been treating its better street ash and removing the rest, and its Forestry Division says privately owned ash trees are the landowner's responsibility. Under the city's tree ordinance, a private ash that dies or becomes hazardous can be cited as a nuisance, with a notice to remove it. The Missouri Department of Agriculture's guide advises that an untreated ash should be removed before it dies, both to save money and because dead ash becomes brittle and harder to take down safely.

Trees that split

Bradford and other Callery pears were planted all over St. Louis subdivisions for their spring flowers. The Missouri Department of Conservation notes that they grow heavy limbs on narrow branch unions that split under ice or wind, and Missouri passed a ban on selling Callery pear in 2025. Silver maples, another common yard tree here, grow fast and also tend to drop limbs. When one of these trees has started to come apart, removal is often more sensible than repeated trimming.

City trees, county rules

Trees in the tree lawn between the curb and the sidewalk belong to the City of St. Louis, and pruning, treating or removing one requires a Permit to Maintain from the Forestry Division. Trees on your own lot in the city do not need a permit to come down. St. Louis County is a patchwork of about 90 municipalities, and each one decides its own rules for street trees and development; Kirkwood, for example, requires a permit for work on right-of-way trees but not for removing a tree on private property. We check what applies at your address before quoting.

Get a Free Estimate

What the estimate covers

• Species, lean, dead wood, cracks and decay on each tree
• What sits underneath: roof, garage, fence, alley, a neighbor's yard
• Whether the tree is in the city tree lawn or near an Ameren line
• How a crew will reach it: climbing, rigging, a lift or a crane
• What happens to logs, brush, chips and the stump
• A written price for each tree, with nothing added unless you agree

The City of St. Louis is the center of our service area, from Carondelet and Dutchtown on the south side through Tower Grove, the Hill, Dogtown and the Central West End to the north side neighborhoods hit by the 2025 tornado. From there we work through St. Louis County: inner suburbs such as University City, Clayton, Richmond Heights, Maplewood, Webster Groves and Kirkwood; south county communities like Affton, Mehlville and Oakville; west county towns including Creve Coeur, Town and Country, Chesterfield and Ballwin; and north county from Florissant to Hazelwood. The city has dense brick blocks, alleys and city-owned tree lawns. The county has bigger lots, more slope, more wooded backyards and a different set of rules in almost every municipality. Each area page covers what we know about that place.