Tree Services in Citrus Heights, California

Before it was Citrus Heights, this area was the Sylvan district, named for a local school and the oak-dotted countryside around it. A real estate firm renamed it in 1910 while splitting grain farms into 10-acre lots, though little citrus was ever grown here. The oaks are the older story. Valley oaks and interior live oaks still stand in older yards and along the city's 26 miles of creeks: Arcade, Brooktree, Coyle, Cripple, Mariposa and San Juan. Along Arcade Creek, native oaks share the banks with cottonwoods, willows and Oregon ash, while decades of suburban planting filled the streets in between with mulberries, pines, pistache and other shade trees.

Most of Citrus Heights is single-family housing on ordinary suburban lots, from established streets around Sylvan Old Auburn Road and Birdcage Heights to later subdivisions in Sunrise Ranch. Homes that back onto a creek have trees leaning toward the water and banks that soften every winter. Older yards often hold a fruitless mulberry or pine that has outgrown its space, with roots heaving patios and limbs reaching over the roof. Front-yard trees planted under power and cable lines need regular clearance. And because the city counts any non-exempt tree of 19 inches or more as protected, a large shade tree on a bigger lot can bring permit rules into play even if it is not an oak.

Citrus Heights runs its own tree program, so the first question on many jobs is whether a permit applies. That depends on the species, the trunk size and the lot, and the city also limits how much can be trimmed from a protected tree without approval, which affects how hard a big oak can be cut back. Creekside work calls for extra care to keep branches and debris out of the channel and heavy equipment off soft banks. Winter is when saturated soil along creeks and in low yards lets tall trees tip, so thinning and deadwood removal in late summer or fall gives a tree a better chance of riding out the storms.