Hillside Tree Removal in Cincinnati, OH

Hillside tree removal is its own kind of job in Cincinnati, a city where roughly one acre in five is hillside with slopes of 20 percent or more. Neighborhoods such as Price Hill, Mount Adams, Clifton, Fairview, Mount Washington and Riverside, and towns across the river in Northern Kentucky, have yards that drop away behind the house, backyards reached by steps, and wooded banks above streets. A tree on one of those slopes is harder to reach, harder to rig and harder to clean up after, and taking it out can affect the ground it grows on.

Why the ground matters

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has written that the Cincinnati area has one of the highest per-capita costs from landslide damage of any US city. Most slides here happen in shale of the Kope Formation and in the loose, weathered rock and soil, called colluvium, that covers it, especially when water builds up in the soil. US Geological Survey work on the Cincinnati area describes slides in thin colluvium as widespread on the steeper Ohio River valley walls. ODNR specifically warns that cutting trees and vegetation on a landslide-prone slope can trigger failure, because roots help hold soil and draw out water. The city's Hillside Overlay District rules list the destruction of mature trees and vegetation among the harms they aim to limit.

Reading a hillside tree

Trees can tell you about the slope. ODNR notes that trees tilted at odd angles all along a slope, sometimes called a drunken forest, and trees on slumped blocks leaning back uphill, can mean the ground has moved. A tree with a fresh lean, cracked soil on its uphill side or exposed roots on its downhill side is a different problem from one that has simply grown toward the light. Some of those trees are dangerous and have to come down. Others are better reduced in height and weight so they can keep holding the bank.

How we approach a slope

• Cut low and leave roots in place unless you ask otherwise; we do not grub out stumps on unstable ground.
• Lower wood in pieces instead of letting it roll or slide downhill into fences, houses or the street below.
• Carry or winch wood up to the street where a truck cannot reach.
• Work when the ground is firm, not right after long rain or during a thaw.
• Talk with you about replanting so the bank is not left bare.

If a slope already shows signs of moving (cracks, bulges, tilting walls), a tree crew is not the right first call; a geotechnical engineer is.