Tree Services in Orangevale, California

Orangevale is named for the orange groves of the Orange Vale Colony, mapped in the 1890s, though a severe freeze in 1930 killed nearly all of them. Olives outlasted the oranges, and original orchard trees still line parts of Chestnut, Orangevale, Main and Walnut avenues. Long before any orchard, these rolling hills at the base of the Sierra foothills were oak country, and many native valley oaks and interior live oaks made it through the farming years, including the old trees in Orangevale Community Park. Toward the east, the land runs down to the American River near Mississippi Bar, where ditches first dug for placer mining later carried water to the groves. Arcade Creek also starts here, near Greenback Lane and Kenneth Avenue.

The town has held on to a rural streak. Horse properties and lots of an acre or more are scattered across Orangevale, and Rollingwood pairs custom homes on lots of roughly a quarter acre or larger with tree-lined canyon edges. Tract streets with tighter yards fill the spaces in between. Big parcels bring problems of scale and neglect: oaks and olives that have gone unpruned for years, dead limbs hanging over pasture and fencing, and long rows of trees on a property line. On smaller lots the issues are closer to the house, such as branches over roofs and roots near slab foundations and pools. Orchard trees were planted for fruit, not shade, and many now have weak branch unions.

On larger Orangevale properties, room to work is rarely the problem. Getting to the tree is. Equipment may need to cross a pasture, avoid irrigation lines and stay off ground that turns soft after rain, so dry-season scheduling makes things easier. Native oaks are covered by Sacramento County's permit rules while old olives are not, so thinning or removing orchard trees is usually simpler than work on an oak. After a winter storm, acreage tends to have several broken limbs spread across fields and fence lines rather than one fallen tree, and clearing driveways and gates comes first. Keeping new paving, trenching and parked vehicles out of oak root zones protects trees that were here long before the houses.