Rutherford County tree work, done right the first time.
Tree removal, trimming, hackberry and maple care, dead-ash removal, stump grinding and 24/7 storm cleanup across Murfreesboro and all of Rutherford County — with an ISA Certified Arborist on staff, insurance you can actually see, and a crew that knows a city tree from a private one and a hackberry worth keeping from one that's about to let go.
Free on-site quote
Same-day callback. Free on-site look and a written price — no guessing over the phone.
- Jan 1997F4 · Barfield & Southridge
- May 2003F3 · Walter Hill
- Apr 2009EF4 · Good Friday, Eagleville to Lascassas
- Feb 2015Ice storm · county-wide
- Mar 2021Tornado · Smyrna, 22 homes
- Jul 2024EF-0 + downburst · Medical Center Pkwy
- Mar 2025EF-1 · Christiana
- May 2025Severe storms · county-wide
A tree company built for limestone soil and fast-growing trees
Tree removal
Dead, dying, leaning and in-the-way trees taken down safely — climbed and rigged piece by piece over the house and the service drop, craned when that's the smart way, dropped whole when there's room.
Removal & pricing →
Emergency & storm service
Maples on roofs, hackberries across driveways, hangers over the sidewalk after a tornado warning or an ice night — answered any hour, with the photos your insurer will want.
24/7 storm service →
Tree trimming & pruning
Crown cleaning, deadwooding, structural pruning and clearance from roofs, wires and driveways — cuts made at the collar where the tree can seal them, never topped.
Trimming & pruning →
Hackberry, maple & oak care
The three trees over most Murfreesboro roofs, assessed for decay and split unions, thinned and reduced where they can be kept, and removed when the trunk has gone hollow.
Species care →
Ash tree removal
Emerald ash borer has reached every ash in Rutherford County. Dead and dying ash removed before they get too brittle to climb; healthy ones treated if that's still on the table.
Ash & EAB →
Stump grinding
Stumps ground 8–12 inches below grade, surface roots chased, chips raked and the hole backfilled so you can seed fescue or plant over it. 811 called first.
Stump grinding →Three trees that keep our phone ringing
Hackberry
Middle Tennessee's volunteer tree. Brittle wood, witches'-broom twig clusters, warty bark that hides decay. Drops limbs in every wind event and hollows out at 50–70 years. Keepable when it's sound, a removal when it isn't.
The hackberry problem →Ash (emerald ash borer)
Green and white ash across Rutherford County are in the last stage of the EAB wave that arrived in 2020. Thinning crowns, blonded bark, D-shaped holes. Dead ash is dangerous to climb, so removal gets pricier the longer it waits.
EAB in Rutherford County →
Bradford pear
Planted in every front yard from Blackman to Smyrna in the 1990s. Splits at its narrow branch unions the first ice night after it turns twenty, and seeds thorny callery thickets down every fence line. Out, ground, replaced with a native.
Bradford pear removal →
Murfreesboro grew fast on thin soil over solid rock
Murfreesboro sits in the middle of the Central Basin, where a few inches to a couple of feet of soil lie over Ordovician limestone. That's why the county has cedar glades — bare rock with eastern red cedars growing out of the cracks — and why big trees here root wide and shallow instead of deep. When a wet February saturates that thin layer and a March front comes through with 60-mile-an-hour gusts, the root plate levers up and the whole tree goes over. The 1950s and '60s streets around MTSU and the old East Main district were planted with sugar maples, hackberries and silver maples that are now at the top of their lifespan, sitting over brick houses that were never meant to have an 80-foot canopy above them.
The newer side of town has a different problem. Blackman, Salem, Barfield and the subdivisions off Veterans Parkway, Manson Pike and Highway 96 were built in the 1990s and 2000s with Bradford pears in every yard and volunteer hackberries along every back line, and the ash trees planted as street trees are now dead or dying from emerald ash borer. Tornado season and ice season take turns on all of it: the Good Friday tornado in 2009, the February 2015 ice storm, Smyrna in 2021, Medical Center Parkway in 2024, Christiana in 2025.
So we inspect before we sell you anything, prune instead of top, cable a maple that's worth keeping, check Chapter 32.5 instead of guessing, call 811 before we grind a stump, and stay out of the ten feet around Middle Tennessee Electric's lines the way OSHA says to. And because we're here year-round, we're the crew that answers when the sirens stop — not the out-of-state trucks that appear for two weeks and vanish.
Four steps, no surprises
Call or send the form
Tell us what's going on — a leaning hackberry, a dead ash, a stump in the way, a cedar lot to clear. We answer around the clock.
Free on-site look
Our arborist looks at the tree, the access and what's under it — house, deck, fence, service drop — and tells you plainly: prune it, cable it, take it down, or leave it alone.
Written price
An itemized price good for 30 days, with the removal, rigging or crane, hauling, stump and any city or HOA paperwork spelled out.
Done, chipped, raked
Most jobs finish in a day. Wood chipped, debris hauled, lawn raked, driveway blown off. Stump grinding scheduled if you want it.
From the East Main historic district to Blackman, Barfield and Salem
We're across Murfreesboro every day: the historic streets off East Main and around Oaklands, the 1950s and '60s neighborhoods around MTSU and Mitchell-Neilson, the older ranches along Cason Lane, Bradyville Pike and Old Fort Parkway, and the newer subdivisions in Blackman, Salem and Barfield and along Veterans Parkway, Manson Pike, Highway 96 and Lascassas Pike.
Beyond the city we cover Smyrna, La Vergne, Christiana, Rockvale, Eagleville, Lascassas, Walter Hill, Milton and Readyville, and across the county lines into Woodbury, Nolensville and Arrington.
See the full service area →
Questions Murfreesboro homeowners ask us
Do I need a permit to remove a tree in Murfreesboro?
For a tree in the yard of your own single-family home, in our experience, no. Murfreesboro's tree rules live in Chapter 32.5 of the city code, and they regulate trees in public areas — city property and the street right-of-way — plus trees the city has designated as landmark trees. A tree between the sidewalk and the curb belongs to the city and needs a permit from the Urban Environmental Department before anyone touches it; a tree in your back yard does not. The two catches: trees a developer planted to satisfy the zoning landscape requirements for a subdivision or commercial site, and trees enrolled as landmark trees, are protected even on private land. We check which bucket your tree is in before a saw comes off the truck.
How much does tree removal cost in Murfreesboro?
Most removals in Rutherford County land between $400 and $3,200. A small ornamental or a Bradford pear on an open lot is at the low end; a 70-foot hackberry or sugar maple leaning over a brick ranch, a deck or the service drop — climbed and rigged down piece by piece, or lifted out with a crane — is at the high end. Stump grinding is priced separately by the inch. You get an itemized written price on site before anything is cut.
Why do hackberries drop so many limbs around here?
Because the hackberry is the volunteer tree of Middle Tennessee. It seeds itself along every fence line, grows fast in our thin limestone soil, and then spends its middle age shedding limbs: the wood is brittle, the twig clusters called witches' brooms weigh down the ends of the branches, and a saturated February followed by a windy March takes the rest. Hackberries can be kept — thinned, deadwooded, reduced over the roof — but a big one with a split trunk or a hollow at the base is a removal, not a pruning job.
Is my ash tree dead, or just late?
If it's an ash in Rutherford County in 2026 and the crown is thin, the bark is blonding where woodpeckers have stripped it, and there are little D-shaped holes in the trunk, it has emerald ash borer and it is dying. The city started removing declining ash from public property before the beetle was even confirmed here in 2020. A dead ash gets brittle fast and is dangerous to climb, so the sooner it comes down the cheaper and safer the job. A healthy ash can still be treated, and we'll tell you honestly which one you have.
Do you really answer at 2 AM after a storm?
24 hours a day, every day. The Good Friday tornado of April 10, 2009 cut a 23-mile path from Eagleville to Lascassas; a tornado damaged 22 homes in Smyrna's Clarkston Square in March 2021; an EF-0 and downburst winds dropped big trees on houses along Medical Center Parkway in July 2024; and an EF-1 tore through Christiana on March 15, 2025. When a maple is through the roof at 2 AM, the first hour matters. Call, tell us what happened, and you'll get a callback with a plan and a time — not a voicemail box.