Cedar & Land Clearing — Half-Acre Lots to Ranchland

The fastest-growing edge of the metro runs straight through our service area — new builds around Dripping Springs and Driftwood, acreage subdivisions off Hamilton Pool Road, horse properties along RR 12. Most of that land is choked with Ashe juniper ("mountain cedar") that outcompetes the oaks, dries the springs, and — after the fire seasons this region has seen — makes insurers nervous.

We do selective clearing, not bulldozer scorched-earth: mark the keepers (live oaks, elms, the occasional madrone), mulch or haul the juniper, and leave land that looks parked-out instead of stripped. That matters for resale, for wildlife, for the aquifer, and for the wildfire letter your insurance company may already have sent.

Typical projects and pricing

Defensible-space clearing is the number-one request — thinning juniper and ladder fuels in the zones nearest structures, the work fire marshals and insurers ask for on canyon lots from Sweetwater to Lost Creek. Then fence lines (cedar eats fences), building-pad and driveway corridors for new construction, and full-lot cleanups on neglected acreage. Light brush runs $1,500–$3,000 per acre; dense cedar with haul-off runs $3,000–$6,500+. Forestry-mulching in place is usually the budget winner — the mulch layer also suppresses regrowth.

Cedar clearing here has a bonus most places don't get: oak release. Pull the juniper out of a crowded stand and the oaks underneath visibly recover within a season or two — more canopy, less allergy load in January, and in many cases a wildlife-management path that keeps an ag-style valuation conversation alive on larger tracts.