Stratford Tree Service
Stratford, Ontario · Perth County
Homeowners and businesses across Stratford call Stratford Tree Service for stump grinding, storm cleanup, dead branch work, tree removal and tree trimming, and every job is fully insured regardless of the tree's size. Most calls start with tree trimming, and whatever the job turns out to be, a written price comes before any work begins. The visit that produces it costs you nothing.
Call (226) 602-0607 to book tree trimming, tree removal or a storm cleanup.
Give us a quick sense of which tree it is and what sits below it, and we will book a visit to see it firsthand before any number gets mentioned. Or call (226) 602-0607.
Every quote we hand over names each tree involved, spells out the tree trimming planned for it, and says exactly where the cut material ends up. Once work is underway, nothing gets added to the bill that was not already on that sheet.
If a tree does not actually need the work another company quoted, we say so, even though that honesty loses us the job more often than it probably should. The about page goes into more detail on how we operate, and the contact page has every way to reach us.
Seven separate tree services cover Stratford and the surrounding area, everything from tree trimming to stump grinding, and each one gets its own page explaining what it involves.
Homes and businesses across Stratford and the surrounding area rely on Stratford Tree Service for tree trimming and pruning, insured on every job and sized to handle any tree. A tree kept on a regular tree trimming and pruning schedule costs less to maintain over its life and is far less likely to lose a limb when a storm rolls through.
View Tree Trimming and Pruning
Dead, broken and hanging branches come down safely with Stratford Tree Service, working across Stratford and the surrounding townships. Insurance covers every job, whether it is one branch or a tree that has lost most of its crown to dieback.
View Dead Branch Removal
When a storm brings a tree down, Stratford Tree Service handles emergency storm damage cleanup across Stratford and the surrounding area, day or night when the situation calls for it. Every job is insured. A tree touching a hydro line is the power company's problem first, so call them before you call us.
View Emergency Storm Damage Cleanup
Stratford Tree Service provides tree removal for trees of any size across Stratford and the surrounding area. Every tree removal job we take on is fully insured, and we handle difficult access on the older, tighter lots near downtown as readily as an open backyard. You get that quote in writing before a single cut is made.
View Tree Removal
Mature trees across Stratford and the surrounding area get crown thinning and canopy reduction from Stratford Tree Service, insured on every job. We plan each visit around what keeps the tree healthy for years, not just what solves today's complaint, and you get that plan in writing before we cut anything.
View Crown Thinning and Canopy Reduction
A tree can be otherwise sound with just one weak point worth reinforcing, and that is exactly the gap Stratford Tree Service fills with tree cabling and bracing across Stratford and the surrounding area. Every job carries insurance, and we tell you plainly whether hardware will actually help before a dollar figure ever comes up.
View Tree Cabling and Bracing
Left-behind stumps come out with Stratford Tree Service's stump grinding and removal, offered across Stratford and the surrounding area. All of our work carries insurance, and grinding is quoted apart from any tree removal, so grinding the stump stays entirely your call.
View Stump Grinding and RemovalTree trimming lowers the odds that a tree drops a branch or fails outright in a storm. Cutting out dead wood, easing a heavy crown and correcting weak growth are all part of tree trimming, and they make a tree safer and let it live longer. [Tree trimming and pruning](tree-trimming-and-pruning.html) is also the least expensive tree work we do, so tree trimming is the easiest place to start protecting a property.
A tree trimmed on a regular schedule also lets more light reach a lawn or a flower bed underneath it, and tree trimming keeps the shape of the tree looking intentional rather than overgrown.
A photo you text us rarely captures a lean, a cracked root plate or rot spreading through the trunk with any real clarity. Standing beside the tree for half an hour catches all three, whatever the job ends up being, small-scale tree trimming or a complete removal. Neither that visit nor the price that follows costs you a cent.
Most of Stratford sits on heavy clay loam left by the glacier that shaped this part of Perth County. Well-drained ground holds a tree's roots firmly, but a lot of this clay drains slowly, and after a wet spring the water table can sit close to the surface for weeks.
Roots cannot push down through saturated clay, so they spread sideways instead, close to the surface, in a wide flat mat rather than a deep anchor. A tree built that way manages fine in calm weather and struggles when wind and wet ground arrive together. Reducing the weight and the wind resistance in the crown through tree trimming lowers the load that shallow roots are asked to carry, and it is one of the few things regular tree trimming can genuinely fix.
A healthy shade tree does well on a three-to-five-year tree trimming cycle. A young tree can come back sooner for lighter touch-ups, since correcting a small branch while it is still thin takes minutes, not the longer visit a mature limb demands.
Dead branch removal and storm cleanup are handled the moment they are needed, whatever the season, separately from a tree's regular tree trimming schedule.
Stratford's tree preservation by-law protects any tree on private property measuring 30 centimetres or more across, roughly the width of a dinner plate at chest height. Taking one of those down without a permit can mean a fine, even on your own lot.
The permit itself is straightforward: an application, an arborist's report describing the tree's condition, and consent from any neighbour whose property line the tree sits close to. We handle that paperwork as part of a tree removal quote, so it is one less thing for a property owner to chase down on their own.
Bare branches make the case for late fall and winter: with the leaves gone you can actually see how a tree is built, and cutting a dormant tree means it puts that healing energy straight into new growth once spring warms up.
Oaks break that rule entirely. Cut one while it still has its leaves and you risk drawing in the beetles behind oak wilt, a disease that can kill the tree within a season or two of infection. We hold all oak work for the dormant months, full stop, and we will say exactly that if a summer call comes in about one.
The emerald ash borer was confirmed in Perth County in 2010, in the farmland northeast of the city, and it has since killed the great majority of ash trees in the region. Ash was planted heavily along Stratford streets and in backyards for decades before the beetle arrived, so the losses show up everywhere, not only in the woodlots.
Every year a dead ash keeps standing, it gets more dangerous to deal with. Within a couple of years the wood turns brittle, and failure happens right at the joints, exactly the spot a climbing rope counts on being solid. A recently dead ash usually still works for dead branch removal or a normal climb; wait several years and the same tree typically needs a bucket truck, which pushes the price up.
Streets like Devon and the blocks around Dufferin Park grew up around trees that are now sixty or eighty years old, planted long before the houses beneath them were built to today's standards. Those trees carry real weight in a storm and their roots often run under a driveway, a sidewalk or a service line that a newer subdivision would not have to consider.
Newer areas toward McCarthy Road and Romeo Street North have younger trees still being shaped, which is a very different job: correcting a leader, spacing out competing branches and raising a low crown gradually rather than removing large, heavy wood. We tell you which situation your tree is in and price the visit accordingly.
Stratford sits close enough to Lake Huron to pick up more snow than Toronto sees most winters, without being deep inside the lake's snowbelt the way towns right on the shoreline are. The bigger risk to a tree here is freezing rain, not snow load on its own.
A layer of snow mostly slides off a crown on its own. Freezing rain behaves completely differently: it bonds to every twig and small branch as a hard shell, and by the next morning a crown can be hauling several times its ordinary weight with the air perfectly calm the whole night. Emergency storm damage cleanup calls spike right after that kind of event, and a crown trimmed back before winter simply has less ice-coated wood to carry.
Three things set the price of tree trimming: how big the tree actually is, what happens to be sitting below it, and how much trouble our truck and crew have getting to it. Most people assume height drives the number, and it barely does.
Standing by itself in open ground, a tree is a quick job. Wedge that same tree between a house, a fence and a hydro line, and it takes noticeably longer and costs noticeably more. The written number always comes after we have laid eyes on the tree, never before.
There is a limit to what tree trimming can solve, and we will always be upfront when tree removal is genuinely the better path. A hollow trunk, rot low down, or roots that have visibly heaved the ground on one side all point to a structural issue that cutting alone will not touch.
Deciding to take a tree out is never a decision to make lightly, and once the stump is gone, we are happy to talk through what might actually thrive in that spot next.
A written quote should name every tree on the property that is being worked on and describe what will be done to each one. It should state how much of the crown comes off, where the cut wood and branches end up, and what is not included in the price.
It should also state that the crew is insured, and we provide that in writing before any cutting begins. Ask the same of anyone else who quotes on your trees; a company that will not put it in writing is telling you something.
We start a tree trimming visit by walking the whole property, not just the tree you mentioned on the phone. If several trees went in around the same time, they are usually the same age and sitting in the same soil, so whatever is wrong with one is worth checking for on its neighbours too.
What is directly underneath the crown decides how we cut. Open ground below means a section can simply drop; anything over a roof, driveway or flower bed comes down on ropes instead, piece by piece.
After the cutting wraps up, the brush goes through the chipper while the larger wood gets stacked, cut into firewood lengths, or hauled off entirely, depending on what you asked for at quote time. We rake the site before packing up, and that same tree trimming crew is who you will see back on site for the next scheduled tree trimming visit.
These photographs come from tree trimming, removal and storm cleanup jobs around Stratford and the nearby townships.
We provide tree trimming throughout Stratford, from the mature streets around the downtown core and the Avon River to the newer subdivisions on the edges of the city. If you would like to know more about how we run a job, the about page covers that in detail.
Shakespeare, Sebringville, St. Marys, Mitchell and the townships of Perth East and Perth South round out our regular coverage area. Just outside that boundary? Message us through the contact page or pick up the phone and ask, since what the job actually involves counts for more with us than how far the drive is.
Pick up the phone at (226) 602-0607, or fill in the form below and we will call you back. Either way, we walk the property first, put every tree and every planned cut on paper, and hand you a single price covering the tree trimming or tree removal the job actually needs.
Size is only one piece of it; what is underneath the tree and how well our truck and crew can get to it usually matter more, and access in particular tends to move the number far more than height ever does. A tree standing by itself takes less time than the same tree boxed in between a house and a fence line. Seeing it in person costs nothing, and that visit is what the written price is based on.
For a tree on private property measuring 30 centimetres or more across, yes, under the city's tree preservation by-law. The application needs an arborist's report and, where the tree sits near a property line, a neighbour's consent. We prepare that paperwork as part of a tree removal quote so you are not chasing it down separately.
Once the leaves drop and a tree goes dormant, late fall through winter becomes the best window for most tree trimming. Oaks break that rule: a cut made while an oak is still leafed out can draw in the beetles behind oak wilt, so we hold oak work until the dormant months regardless. Dead branches and storm damage get handled the moment they turn up, in any season.
It gets more expensive the longer it waits. A newly dead ash can usually still be climbed safely. Once the wood has dried out for a couple of years it turns brittle at the joints, climbing stops being safe, and the job needs a bucket truck instead, which costs more. Two years after death is a very different quote than five.
Ice is usually the bigger factor. A crown sheds ordinary snow without much trouble, but a coating of freezing rain locks onto every small branch and stays put, so the total load a tree carries can climb dramatically overnight even with the air dead still. Having a heavy crown lightened before winter arrives is the single most practical step an owner can take against it.
Knowing the species and a rough height lets us quote tree trimming or tree removal more accurately, and your street matters just as much, because how easily equipment can reach the tree changes the cost more than its size does. Note what the tree is positioned over, and flag the urgent box if storm damage is why you are writing in. Realistically, a working phone number or email is the only field we genuinely cannot skip. Prefer to talk it through instead? Call (226) 602-0607 directly.
