Oldsmar sits at the very top of Old Tampa Bay, which makes it the only part of our service area in Pinellas County and one of the few with its own city government making its own rules about trees.
It is also the one place we work where the most common question is not what a tree costs to remove, but whether you are allowed to touch it at all.
Mangroves are not ours to cut
The mangroves along the bay and the bayou are protected under Florida state law, not city or county rules, and trimming them is regulated by the state. There are narrow exemptions for shorter mangroves within set limits, and anything beyond that needs a permit before a single cut. We do not touch mangroves without one, and we would treat any contractor who offers to as a serious warning sign. Fines here are levied per tree.
The city has its own tree code
Oldsmar is an incorporated city rather than unincorporated county, so its own ordinance governs removal within the city limits, separately from Pinellas County. Certain trees require a permit before removal even on private property. We will tell you at the estimate whether yours is likely to need one, and we do not start work on a protected tree without it.
Salt decides what survives near the water
Closer to the bay, salt in the soil and salt on the wind kill anything not suited to it. Live oak, sabal palm, buttonwood and sea grape cope. Most other hardwoods and queen palms struggle within a few hundred feet of open water. A declining tree on a bayfront lot is far more often in the wrong place than diseased, and replacing it with something salt-tolerant beats spending money treating it.
Surge at the top of the bay
Old Tampa Bay narrows as it goes north and water stacks up at this end during a surge event. Salt water sitting over a root zone does damage that shows up weeks later rather than the next morning, so a tree that has quietly thinned out since the last storm is worth a look before it becomes a hazard.
Where we work in Oldsmar
We cover Oldsmar and the surrounding neighborhoods, including Bayside Meadows, Cypress Lakes, Forest Lakes, Mobbly Bayou, Bay Arbor and Sheffield.
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