Land Clearing in Fayetteville, AR

Clearing land in the Ozarks is its own kind of job

Land around Fayetteville rarely comes as flat, open ground. Most lots on the edge of town and out toward the surrounding hills are a mix of eastern red cedar, scrub oak, hickory, sumac, blackberry and vines, often on a slope with rock just under the surface. Left alone for ten or fifteen years, an old pasture fills in so thickly you cannot walk through it. That is the kind of ground we clear.

Clearing here is less about knocking everything down and more about deciding what stays. A mature white oak or a healthy shortleaf pine can be the best thing on a property, and it takes decades to replace. Before any equipment moves, we walk the land with you, flag the trees you want to keep, and talk about where the house, drive, garden or fence line is going to go.

What land clearing can include

• Clearing brush, saplings and vines from an overgrown lot or yard
• Removing cedar that has taken over pasture or a hillside
• Opening up a fence line so a new fence can go in
• Clearing a building pad and driveway path before construction
• Thinning a wooded area so the remaining trees have room to grow
• Taking out dead and leaning trees along the edge of a field
• Grinding the stumps left behind so the ground can be used

Some jobs are a single weekend's worth of brush. Others are a few acres. We price each one after seeing it, because density, slope, access and what you want done with the material change the work more than the size of the area does.

Protecting the trees you keep

The roots of a large tree spread well past the edge of its canopy, and most of them are in the top foot of soil. Heavy machines driven over that root zone, especially when the ground is wet, compact the soil and crush the fine roots the tree depends on. The damage does not show right away. A tree can look fine for a couple of years and then start dying back from the top.

On clearing jobs we keep equipment off the root zones of trees you have chosen to save wherever possible, and cut brush by hand close to them instead. If a building plan puts a driveway or foundation right over the roots of a tree you love, we will be honest that the tree may not survive the construction, so you can plan around it.

What happens to the material

Brush and small trees are usually chipped or mulched. Mulch can be spread back over the cleared ground to hold soil in place on a slope, which matters here because bare ground on a hillside will wash after the first heavy rain. If you would rather have it hauled off, we can do that, and it will be part of the written price. Larger trunks can be cut to firewood length and stacked for you, or removed.

We do not burn on clearing jobs. Open burning has rules and weather limits, and chipping is cleaner for neighbors anyway.

Stumps, roots and getting the ground ready

Cutting trees down leaves stumps, and on a lot you plan to mow, plant or build on, those stumps need to go. We grind them below the surface so the ground can be smoothed and seeded. You can read more about that on our stump grinding page. For a building pad, your builder or excavator may want the stumps and root balls handled a particular way, and we are happy to coordinate with them.

If any of the trees on the property are large, dead or leaning toward a structure, they are handled separately from the brush work, using the same rigging methods as our tree removal service.

Before we start

Check whether your plans need any permits from the City of Fayetteville or the county. Rules can apply to tree removal and grading on some properties, particularly during development, and they are worth knowing before work begins rather than after. We will flag anything that looks like it might be affected, but the final answer comes from the city or county.

We will also arrange utility locates before grinding stumps or working near buried lines, and we will ask you about septic fields, wells and private lines on the property. Rural lots outside town often have all three, and none of them are marked by the public locate service.

Getting an estimate

Call (479) 317-8391 or send the form, and we will set a time to walk the property with you. You will get a written price covering what is cleared, what stays, what happens to the material and how the stumps are handled. That is the number you pay unless you decide to add to the job.

Common questions

How long does it take to clear a lot?

It depends on how thick the growth is, how steep the ground is and how much is staying. A small, brushy yard may take a day. A few acres of dense cedar can take considerably longer. We give you a realistic time frame with the written estimate.

Can you clear just the underbrush and leave the trees?

Yes. Clearing the understory while keeping the larger trees is one of the most common requests we get, especially from people who want a wooded lot they can actually walk through.