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Tree Trimming in Pleasant Valley

Pleasant Valley? Covered. Phone (530) 240-2208, and a pro who regularly drives your back roads gets lined up.

Tell us about the tree when you call. Oak, pine, fruit tree, whatever it is. We'll pass it on so the right person comes.

Where Pleasant Valley sits

Pleasant Valley is a small unincorporated spot about 3.5 miles south of Camino. It sits at about 2,461 feet. From 1864 until 1917, the community had its own post office.

Wine and fruit define the area. Wikipedia's Placerville entry describes the Apple Hill and Pleasant Valley country east of town as a growing center for winemaking. Officially, it falls inside the El Dorado AVA wine region.

Black oaks start about here

At 2,461 feet you're inside black oak range. A UC Master Gardener talk on county oaks gives their range as 2,000 to 6,000 feet of elevation. They're tall trees with upward reaching limbs and an open, rounded crown.

Leaves give a black oak away. Look for 2 to 6 inch leaves with deep, angular lobes, each tipped by a fine bristle. Young bark is smooth and gray, darkening to nearly black with deep furrows as the tree ages.

Being deciduous, black oaks get pruned in winter. Small cuts are best. Under the arborist group's guideline, a quarter of the crown is the most to remove at once, and grand old trees should lose less.

Orchard trees and vine rows

If you've got fruit trees, you're in good company out here. Apples, pears and plums get their main pruning in the dormant season, per the UC Master Gardener fruit handout, plus a lighter summer trim.

Because of Eutypa dieback, UC has apricots and cherries wait until July and August. Grapevines are vulnerable to that fungus too. Holding grape pruning until the tail end of dormancy, from February on, cuts the odds, UC says.

Trees along vineyard edges can shade the vines or drop limbs on the rows. A raise or a light thinning often fixes that without losing the tree.

Oak, black oak or a mix?

Black oaks and interior live oaks sometimes cross. The Master Gardener talk calls the result the oracle oak. It grows only where the two parents overlap, and it may drop some of its leaves and keep others.

That makes the pruning season a puzzle. If your oak looks half green and half bare in winter, it could be one of these. Let the pro take a look before anyone picks a month.

Black oaks are also part of the red oak group, while blue and valley oaks belong to the white oak group. The talk says galls and some diseases stick to one group. That's handy to know when a pro is figuring out what's wrong.

Cost of a pruning visit

Fixr says pruning, the kind aimed at a tree's health, usually runs $350 to $650 and more for larger trees. It's often done by an arborist, which adds to the price. That's a national figure, so your quote may differ.

Neighbors

North of you is tree trimming in Camino, while south lies tree trimming in Somerset. Orchard owners might like fruit tree pruning. The main page is tree trimming in Placerville, and the rest of the map is under our towns.