Tree Service in Bakersfield, CA

Tree service in Bakersfield is mostly about trees that are working hard to survive. The city sits at about 400 feet on the floor of the San Joaquin Valley, averages roughly six and a third inches of rain a year, and sees around 36 days a year at 100 degrees or hotter, usually from early June into mid-September. Almost nothing in a Bakersfield yard grows without irrigation. When watering slips, or a lawn is torn out and the sprinklers go with it, the shade trees that depended on that water start to show it a season or two later, and that is often when homeowners first call a tree company.

Trees that do well here, and trees that struggle

UC Cooperative Extension in Kern County notes that the area's alkaline soils and heat are a poor match for some popular trees. Maples tend to yellow and their thin bark sunburns. Coast redwoods brown out and thin. Liquidambar (sweetgum), once a common street and yard tree, has been in decline locally, with Extension estimating about 80 percent of them affected, likely by Xylella bacteria. On the other side of the ledger, Aleppo, Canary Island and Italian stone pines handle the warmth, valley oak has held up well, and eucalyptus thrives but can top 70 feet and drops heavy litter. Knowing which group a tree falls into changes the advice: a declining sweetgum over a bedroom is a removal conversation, while a healthy pine may only need thinning and dead wood taken out.

Mistletoe in shade trees

Drive through older Bakersfield neighborhoods in winter and the green clumps stand out in the bare ash and other deciduous trees. Kern County Extension describes leafy mistletoe as a parasite affecting many trees in the county, especially valley shade trees like ash and maple. Snapping off the clump only buys time; Extension notes the shoots return within nine to twelve months. The lasting fix is pruning the infected branch at least a foot below the clump, and December is the month the Kern County landscape calendar sets aside for it.

Palms over the rooftops

Tall fan palms are part of the Bakersfield skyline, and each one needs a climber or a lift to clean out dead fronds and seed stalks. Palm debris is its own problem: the Mt. Vernon Recycling and Composting Facility, which takes tree limbs, trunks and brush, does not accept palm. We plan palm work with disposal in mind from the start.

Wind, wires and parkways

The valley does not get hurricanes or ice storms, but strong wind events still bring trees down. In October 2019, for example, high winds across Kern County dropped two large trees onto a home on Dodge Avenue in south Bakersfield. Overhead, PG&E runs the lines in the Bakersfield area and handles clearing around them. Along the street, the city's code puts trees in parkways and public places under the control of the Recreation and Parks director and requires contractors to get a city permit before working on them. We check both before quoting.

Get a Free Estimate

What a typical estimate covers

• Species, lean, dead wood, mistletoe and signs of decay or drought stress
• What sits underneath: roof, pool, block wall, patio cover, cars, the neighbor's yard
• Whether the tree is in a city parkway or near PG&E lines
• How a crew gets in: side gates, alley access, a narrow backyard
• Where the wood, chips and palm fronds go, and whether the stump is ground
• A written price for each tree

Bakersfield is the center of our service area, from downtown, Westchester and East Bakersfield to the southwest tracts, Seven Oaks, Rosedale and the northwest. Around the city we work in Oildale and the north side along the Kern River bluffs, in Shafter, Wasco and the farm towns to the northwest, and in Lamont, Arvin and the communities to the south and southeast. Conditions shift across that area. Older neighborhoods near downtown have bigger, older shade trees and street parkways; newer subdivisions to the west have younger trees packed into small backyards behind block walls; and the rural edges have windbreaks, eucalyptus rows and larger lots. City rules apply inside Bakersfield, while unincorporated areas fall under Kern County, and each area page covers what we know about that place.