#1 Tree Removal & Trimming Service Provider
in Tampa
Tampa Elite Tree Service | Expert Tree Removal, Trimming & Stump Grinding in Tampa, FL
Tampa Elite Tree Service handles tree removal, trimming and pruning, palm trimming, stump grinding and storm debris clean up for homes and businesses in Tampa, FL and across Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties.
Tampa trees live a hard life. Sandy soil, a high water table, daily summer lightning and a hurricane season that runs from June through November all take a toll, and the 2024 storms knocked the city's tree canopy down from 31.4% to 29.9% in a single year. A lot of the oaks still standing are carrying cracked unions and loosened roots from Helene and Milton.
We know the trees that shade this city, from grand live oaks and short-lived laurel oaks to slash pines, magnolias, sabal palms and queen palms, and we plan every job around them.
Tampa Elite Tree Service also works in Brandon, Riverview, Valrico, Temple Terrace, Plant City, Lutz, Wesley Chapel, Carrollwood, Westchase, Apollo Beach & more.
Call us today and let us take care of your trees!
✔ Licensed & Insured
✔ Same-Day Service Available
✔ 5-Star Rated Locally
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Why Choose Tampa Elite Tree Service?
Certified Arborist Oversight
An ISA Certified Arborist oversees our work, so every removal, trim and treatment plan starts with a real look at the tree's health, structure and what sits underneath it.
Licensed & Insured
We carry general liability and workers' compensation coverage, and we will send your certificate of insurance to you or your HOA before the crew shows up.
Serving All of Tampa Bay
From South Tampa and Davis Islands to Brandon, Riverview and Wesley Chapel, our crews cover Hillsborough County and the neighboring parts of Pasco and Pinellas.
Free Written Estimates
You get a written, itemized price for removal, stump grinding and debris hauling before any work is booked, with no pressure and no surprise charges later.
24/7 Storm Response
When a tropical storm or summer squall drops a tree on your roof, lanai or driveway, we answer the phone day or night and get the scene safe fast.
Rigging & Crane Access
Tight South Tampa lots, pool cages and power lines are routine for us. We rope, bucket truck or crane each piece out so nothing crashes onto your property.
Tree Care and Removal Services
Tree Removal
We take down trees that are dead, hollow, uprooting, crowding a foundation or standing where you plan to build. In Tampa that is often a laurel oak, a fast grower that usually lives only 50 to 70 years before heart rot sets in.
Trees within reach of a roof, pool cage or fence come down piece by piece with ropes, a bucket truck or a crane. Price depends on height, trunk size, lean, what sits underneath and access.
We will also tell you whether a City of Tampa permit or a Florida Statute 163.045 exemption applies to your tree.
Tree Trimming & Pruning
Regular trimming is the cheapest hurricane prep a Tampa homeowner can buy.
We prune to ANSI A300 standards, cutting just outside the branch collar so the tree can seal the wound properly. We never top trees or hurricane cut palms down to a few fronds.
Common goals are keeping limbs off the roof and screen enclosure, thinning the canopy so wind passes through, and training young live oaks.
Oaks are best pruned in the mild winter months, and palms are trimmed only as fronds turn brown.
Stump Grinding
A leftover stump invites termites, trips mowers and keeps pushing up sprouts.
We grind 6 to 12 inches below grade for sod, and deeper if you plan to replant or pour concrete.
- Utilities marked through Sunshine 811
- Irrigation lines flagged
- Compact grinders for 36-inch gates
Palm stumps are fibrous, so we grind them differently and haul the fiber away. Grindings can stay as fill or leave with us.
Emergency Tree Service
Afternoon thunderstorms and tropical systems don't wait for business hours in Tampa, and our emergency crews don't either.
We respond to trees resting on roofs, cars, lanais and driveways, and to broken limbs hanging over walkways. Crews roll with saws, rigging and a chipper so most scenes are made safe in a single trip.
While you wait for us:
- Keep people and pets well clear of the tree
- Treat every downed wire as live and report it to TECO or your electric provider right away
- Photograph the damage from every side for insurance
- Leave branches alone that may be holding weight
When the job is done we hand you written documentation of the work, which most insurers ask for with a storm claim.
Storm Clean Up
After a tropical storm or squall line, Tampa yards are left covered in trunks, limbs and palm fronds.
Our crews cut up and haul fallen trees, pull hangers out of the canopy, clear debris from lawns, pools and beds, and chip everything on site. If the storm leaves stumps behind, we can grind them during the same visit.
We also check the trees that made it through. After Helene and Milton we found plenty of oaks with lifted root plates in soaked sand, fresh cracks at the unions or a new lean, which are the trees most likely to fall in the next storm.
HOAs and neighborhoods with several damaged lots can book one coordinated clean up so equipment only comes in once.
Utility Line Tree Trimming
Limbs touching your service drop can cause outages, arcing and even fires.
We trim around the line running from the pole to your house, which is usually the homeowner's responsibility, using insulated tools and keeping safe clearance the whole time.
Main distribution lines belong to Tampa Electric (TECO), Duke Energy or Withlacoochee River Electric, depending on your address, and only their line-clearance crews should work near them. We will tell you plainly when a problem is theirs to fix.
Where we prune near lines, we use directional pruning to steer regrowth away from the wires so you can go longer between trims.
Crown Reduction
Crown reduction lowers a tree's height or spread while keeping its natural shape intact.
Each limb is cut back to a side branch at least one-third the diameter of the piece we remove. That branch becomes the new tip, so the tree keeps a strong structure instead of pushing out a flush of weak sprouts after the cut.
It is a good fit for a live oak that has outgrown a small South Tampa lot or a canopy that has gotten heavy at the ends.
On mature trees we take no more than about a quarter of the living crown in one season. Removing more stresses the tree, invites water sprouts and leaves it weaker going into hurricane season.
Limb Removal
Sometimes the tree is healthy and only one or two limbs are causing trouble for your home or yard.
Heavy limbs come off in three cuts, an undercut, a top cut and a final cut at the collar, so bark does not tear down the trunk.
Limbs over a roof, pool cage or AC unit are tied off and lowered by rope rather than dropped.
In Florida you can generally trim a neighbor's branches back to the property line as long as the tree is not harmed. Common problems we fix:
- Limbs resting on the roof
- Branches scraping screen enclosures
- Low limbs over the driveway
- Cracked limbs hanging over walkways or patios
Tree Cabling & Bracing
Cabling and bracing add support to a tree with a weak spot that is still worth keeping.
In Tampa the usual candidate is a big live oak or laurel oak with two trunks of similar size sharing one union, often with bark pinched between them. Unions like that tend to split in hurricane gusts.
Steel cable goes high in the canopy, about two-thirds of the way up, to limit how far the stems move apart. A threaded steel rod goes through or just above the weak union to hold it together from the inside.
Hardware needs a check every few years for tension and wear, and we note the next inspection date on every system we install.
Deadwooding
Deadwooding takes the dead, dying and broken branches out of a tree's canopy.
Dead limbs get weaker every year and can fall without warning onto patios, driveways, play sets and parked cars. Pulling them out also takes away a home for wood-boring insects and the decay fungi that follow them into a tree.
Since we remove only dead wood, it can be done any month without stressing the tree. It is especially common on older laurel oaks and water oaks, which naturally shed their shaded interior branches as they age.
We can deadwood on its own or add it to a regular trimming visit.
Arborist Consultation
A consultation tells you whether a tree is safe, treatable or should come down.
We inspect the root flare and trunk, look for decay signs like fungal conks and cavities, measure lean and root movement, and check branch unions, canopy density and any sign of pests or disease.
- Heart rot in aging laurel oaks
- Ganoderma butt rot in palms
- Lethal bronzing in sabal and queen palms
- Laurel wilt in redbays and avocados
- Root damage from grading and new construction
You get a written report with our findings.
Homeowners use these reports for home sales, permits, insurance claims and HOA approvals, and for Florida Statute 163.045 removals.
Firewood Removal & Hauling
We haul away everything we cut unless you ask us to leave some of it behind for you.
A standard removal includes full debris clean up, and logs, brush and chips all leave with the crew. If you want to keep the wood, we cut it to the length you choose and stack it where you want it. We also haul limbs and logs from trees we did not cut, like a storm pile or wood another company left behind.
Seasoned oak burns well in a fire pit, while pine burns fast and hot. Palm trunks are fiber rather than wood, so we haul them off instead.
Tree Maintenance
Tree Health Inspection
Every inspection starts at the soil line. We check the root flare for girdling roots and rot, look over the trunk for cavities, cracks and included bark, then work up into the canopy for deadwood, thinning and off-color leaves. On the live oaks, laurel oaks and palms common in Tampa neighborhoods, we also watch for Ganoderma conks at the base and beetle exit holes. We suggest a yearly visit for mature trees, plus a check before June for any tree that could reach your house or pool cage.
Disease & Pest Treatment
Tampa's heat and humidity keep many tree problems active all year, so we confirm exactly what we are dealing with before treating. The list we see most includes lethal bronzing in sabal, queen and date palms, Ganoderma butt rot, laurel wilt in redbays and avocados, scale and whiteflies on magnolias and ficus, and Ips beetles in stressed slash pines. Treatments are timed to the pest's life cycle and used at the lowest rate that works.
Tree Fertilization
Most Tampa yards sit on sand with very little organic matter, and summer rain washes nutrients straight through it. We test the soil first, checking pH, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and micronutrients like manganese and magnesium that palms burn through fast. Slow-release fertilizer then goes in by deep root injection 6 to 8 inches down, with palm-specific blends for palms, and we follow the local summer fertilizer restrictions that protect Tampa Bay.
Root Care & Soil Treatment
Compacted soil and fill dirt slowly starve urban trees by squeezing out the air roots need. We use an air spade to loosen soil without cutting roots, uncover buried root flares and find girdling roots, which are common in newer Hillsborough subdivisions. Other root zone work includes vertical mulching, adding organic matter and biochar to sandy soil, resetting mulch to 2 to 4 inches, and root pruning before a new driveway, pool or addition.
Seasonal Tree Care
Tampa really has two tree seasons, dry and wet. Winter is the best window for structural pruning on oaks and other hardwoods. Spring, our driest stretch, is for pre-hurricane pruning, deadwooding and fertilizing ahead of the summer restriction period. Summer brings storm response, palm trimming for brown fronds and seed pods, and pest monitoring. Fall covers post-season inspections, soil testing and planting once the heat finally breaks.
Tree Risk Assessment
A risk assessment answers three questions: how likely is the tree to fail, what would it hit, and how bad would the damage be. We use the ISA Tree Risk Assessment Qualification (TRAQ) method, logging codominant stems, decay, lean, root plate lifting and hanging limbs, then rating each tree low to extreme. In Tampa, an arborist-signed assessment is also what single-family homeowners need to remove a high-risk tree under Florida Statute 163.045.
Specialty Tree Care
Tree Preservation for Construction
Historic & Heritage Oak Care
Root Barrier Installation
Tree & Palm Relocation
Lightning Protection Systems
Tree Bracing for Structural Support
What to Expect During a Tampa Tree Service Job
Your estimate starts with a free property visit. One of our estimators looks at the tree's species, trunk size, lean, root condition, decay and dead limbs, then checks everything in the fall zone, including pool cages, fences, sheds, power lines, septic drain fields and neighboring homes. A tree behind a fence on a narrow Davis Islands lot needs a different plan than one in an open Brandon front yard. You get a written estimate and we tell you if a City of Tampa permit is needed.
We bring what your property allows: a bucket truck for trees we can reach from the street, a crane for big removals over roofs and pools, and climbers with rigging where trucks cannot get in. Before cutting starts we lay ground mats so trucks do not rut soft sandy lawns or crack pavers, cover pools, lanais and AC units, lower limbs by rope, and coordinate with TECO when limbs are near service lines. Certificates of insurance are available before we arrive.
Clean up happens while we work, not after. Brush goes through the chipper as it comes down and logs are cut and loaded as the tree is taken apart. Once it is down, we rake the area, blow off driveways, walkways and pool decks, and sweep for dropped hardware. Stumps are ground 6 to 12 inches below grade if grinding is part of the job, and you can keep the grindings for fill or have us haul them away with everything else.
Most home jobs finish in a single day. Trimming one to three trees takes two to four hours, a standard removal four to eight hours, a crane removal six to ten hours and stump grinding alone one to two hours. Scheduling usually runs three to ten business days from estimate to start, longer during hurricane season. City permit reviews can add time, and lightning, heavy rain or high wind will pause work until conditions are safe.
Proudly Serving Other Areas
Tampa
Brandon
Riverview
Valrico
Temple Terrace
Plant City
Lutz
Wesley Chapel
Land O' Lakes
Carrollwood
Westchase
Town 'n' Country
Apollo Beach
Ruskin
Seffner
Odessa
What Our Clients Have To Say
Tampa Elite Tree Service FAQ
We offer tree removal, trimming and pruning, palm trimming, stump grinding, storm clean up and dead limb removal for homes and businesses, plus lot clearing, crown reduction and tree health assessments.
Not sure whether a tree should come down or can be saved? We will check it and explain your options. We serve Tampa and nearby communities including Brandon, Riverview, Carrollwood, Temple Terrace and Wesley Chapel.
Yes. Hurricanes and summer storms regularly drop oaks, pines and palms onto Tampa roofs, cars and driveways.
We handle trees on buildings, blocked driveways and hanging limbs that are an immediate danger. If a tree is touching a power line, call TECO or your utility first, because we never work on energized lines.
We can also photograph the damage for your insurance claim.
Yes. We carry general liability and workers' compensation insurance and can send you a certificate before any work starts.
That matters more than most people think. If an uninsured crew damages your roof or someone is hurt on your property, you could be left with the bills, so always ask a tree company for written proof of coverage rather than a verbal yes.
Most single-tree removals in Tampa run about $450 to $2,000. The final price depends on:
- Height and trunk size, since a 30-foot palm is far less work than a 70-foot live oak
- What is nearby, like homes, pool cages or power lines
- Condition, because dead or storm-damaged trees need extra care
- Access for equipment or carrying debris out by hand
- Clean up scope and whether stump grinding is added
Yes. Many of our jobs are in tight spaces where a tree simply cannot be dropped in one piece.
In those cases we climb and rig the tree, taking it down from the top in sections and lowering each piece by rope so we control exactly where everything lands.
Near service lines or other utility equipment, we coordinate with the utility when clearance work or a temporary disconnect is needed first.
Yes, estimates are free with no obligation.
We visit your property, look at the tree and everything around it, and measure what the job will take.
You then get a written quote that spells out exactly what is included in the price.
That includes whether debris hauling and stump grinding are part of the job, so nothing is left unclear.
Call us or send a request through our contact form and we will set up a time that works for you.