Tree Trimming in Riverton

Riverton is a small village north of Springfield that sits along the Sangamon River, giving it a very different tree environment than the surrounding agricultural flatlands. The riverfront and bluff areas have significant mature tree cover including large cottonwoods, sycamores, and oaks. The community has a mix of older homes near the river and some newer residential development further from the water. The river setting creates both beauty and hazard when it comes to tree management.

Overgrown or dead branches drop fast during the ice storms that hit central Illinois every winter. Springfield sits in a wide-open prairie with no natural windbreak, so trees here take the full force of those storms. A lot of the older neighborhoods like Iles Park and Laurel Hills have silver maples and cottonwoods that were planted in the 1960s and are now pushing 60 feet tall — those limbs get heavy, and heavy limbs fall.

We look at the tree in person before we quote anything, because a photo doesn't show a hollow trunk or a root system heaving up against a foundation. We cut to the branch collar — that's the slight ridge where the branch meets the trunk — so the tree seals itself over instead of rotting from an open wound left by a flush cut.