We prune, support and remove old trees across Marietta, especially the white oaks, southern red oaks, pecans and southern magnolias around historic homes near Marietta Square, and the pines and hardwoods on wooded lots toward Kennesaw Mountain. The City of Marietta sets its own tree rules, and addresses outside city limits fall under Cobb County, so we check which applies before we quote. The phone is answered around the clock.
Old oaks and magnolias around historic homes
Near Marietta Square, many trees are as old as the houses they shade. White oaks with trunks a few feet across, southern red oaks, pecans and southern magnolias stand in front yards and along property lines, and many of them hang over porches, metal or slate roofs and detached garages. These trees add a lot to the house and the street, and most of our work on them is pruning rather than removal.
Old trees don't tolerate heavy cutting. We take out deadwood, reduce a long limb that has grown over a roof and leave the natural shape alone instead of rounding the crown off. Where two big stems split from one trunk and the union looks weak, a support cable can take load off the crack. Our post on the signs of a declining tree covers what you can spot from the ground between visits.
Southern magnolias, dense and easy to get wrong
Southern magnolias stand in a lot of older Marietta yards, and they come with their own problems. Their evergreen crowns are dense and heavy, their low limbs often sweep the ground, and their shallow roots spread wide across lawns where little else grows in the shade and leaf litter. Owners call when a magnolia has grown into the gutters, covered a window or started lifting a walkway.
Cutting the lower skirt off a big magnolia changes how it looks for years and can expose thin bark that has been shaded for decades, so we raise it gradually if at all. Thinning a few interior limbs lets wind pass through, and we cut branches that rub the roof back to a proper union instead of shearing the outside. When a magnolia has to go, the stump and its wide surface roots usually call for grinding and some root work before anything new is planted.
Wooded lots toward Kennesaw Mountain
Northwest of the Square, toward Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, the older blocks give way to wooded subdivisions and lots that back onto forested slopes. Pines, tulip poplars, hickories and oaks crowd the back lines, and the ground is often steep and rocky enough that no machine can reach the tree. Those removals are climbed and lowered, with wood carried or winched up to the driveway, and deadwood pruning on the trees that stay keeps limbs off decks and play areas.
Inside city limits, the City of Marietta sets its own tree rules, and plenty of Marietta mailing addresses sit outside the city in unincorporated Cobb, where the county sets them. Sorting out which side of that line a house falls on is the first step of every job here. The same mix of old hardwoods and rebuild lots continues south into Smyrna, and our Cobb County page covers East Cobb and the rest of the county.