Dead Ash Tree Removal in a Tight Coon Rapids Backyard

Dead ash trees are some of the trickiest removals we deal with. Once the Emerald Ash Borer kills a tree, the wood becomes dry and brittle fast - and that unpredictability changes everything about how you approach the work. Add a wood fence into the mix, and the margin for error basically disappears.

That's exactly what we were working with on this job in Coon Rapids. Two dead ash trees, fully killed off by EAB, both sitting in a backyard bordered by a wood fence that needed to come through the day without a scratch. Before we ever started a saw, we walked the whole site, talked through the plan as a crew, and mapped out every cut and every rigging point. That front-end work isn't glamorous, but it's what keeps jobs like this clean.

Once we got into it, we worked piece by piece - carefully dismantling each tree from the top down and using precision rigging to guide every section away from the fence. One crew member on the mini skid, one working the tree, clear communication the whole way through. That kind of methodical approach is what separates a technical removal done right from one that goes sideways.

By the end of the day, both trees were down, all the debris was cleared, and that fence was standing exactly as we found it. Not a single board touched. The homeowners were happy, and honestly the crew was too. There's something satisfying about pulling off a removal like this cleanly - it's the kind of work that reminds you why the planning matters so much.

If you've got dead ash trees or any removal situation with tight clearances around fences, sheds, or other structures, that's exactly the kind of work we're built for. Rooted Treeworks serves Coon Rapids and the broader Minneapolis area, and we bring the same level of care and preparation to every job - whether it's one tree or several.