Selective Underbrush Clearing in Athens, TX

Underbrush in Athens

Underbrushing is thinning out the tangle beneath your trees while leaving the trees themselves alone, and in Smith County that means a fight with yaupon. Yaupon holly grows into a solid, head-high thicket under loblolly pine and post oak, and with greenbriar, privet and young sweetgum it turns a pretty stand of timber into something you cannot see into, walk through or hunt. I grind that understory out with the mulcher and leave a clean floor of chips under the canopy. The result is open, park-like woods: shade on top, mulch underneath, sight lines all the way across the property. It is the first thing most people want done on a wooded homesite in Flint, Whitehouse or Lindale, the way lake lot owners at Lake Palestine and Lake Tyler open up a view, and how hunters and recreational owners on bigger tracts around Mineola, Gilmer and Jacksonville get their woods usable again. The big trees stay. The junk growth choking the ground under them goes.

Land clearing in Athens

Athens is the Henderson County seat, about 35 miles southwest of Tyler where Hwy 31, US-175 and Hwy 19 meet, home of the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center and a courthouse square that still fills up on a Saturday. Lake Athens sits just east of town, Cedar Creek Reservoir is a short drive west, and the country in between is a mix of sandy post oak land, scattered pine, and pasture that goes to cedar and briar the minute somebody stops shredding it. Lake lots, retirement acreage and horse places make up most of what I clear around Athens. I open homesites and drives on tracts along Hwy 31 toward Murchison and down Hwy 19, underbrush lake lots on Lake Athens so the owner can see the water, mulch cedar and brush off pasture, clear fence lines on ranchettes toward Malakoff and Eustace, and take out the storm-damaged water oaks and dead pines that lean toward a roof. The ground here is sandier and more open than Smith County, which makes mulching quick and keeps the price per acre down. One operator, one machine, priced by the acre or the job after a walk with you.

• Yaupon, greenbriar, privet and young sweetgum ground out under the canopy
• Every mature pine, post oak and shade tree left standing
• Clean mulch floor instead of debris piles
• Open, walkable woods with sight lines across the tract
• Better wildlife browse and lower fire fuel around structures
• Homesites, lake lots, hunting ground and recreational acreage

Need underbrush elsewhere? See all of my Athens services or underbrush across Tyler.