We live in castlegate and with all of the new construction one of our mature trees died in the backyard. Does anyone have a rough idea as to the cost to have it removed and the stump ground?

Any recommendations on who to use? New to town and really have no idea where to start and dont want to overpay.

I would call Derek.
http://www.dictsontree.com/

+1 for Dictson Tree Removal. 979-575-4496

The cost will depend on the time and equipment needed to do the job without damaging your property. In my experience every tree removal is completely unique.

On a sidenote, developers and builders are not doing homeowners any favors by leaving the yards near new homes full of Postoak trees. When they die after a year or two the owner is left with a difficult situation and an unforeseen cost to have them removed.

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On a sidenote, developers and builders are not doing homeowners any favors by leaving the yards near new homes full of Postoak trees. When they die after a year or two the owner is left with a difficult situation and an unforeseen cost to have them removed.

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I appreciate your post above, but could you kindly elaborate on the last paragraph.
I'm a novice on the topic and would like to know more.
Thanks.

Post Oak trees die very easily when their root systems are disturbed, the soil around them is compressed, an irrigation system is installed, fertilizer is used, etc. In short, they are terrible trees for residential subdivisions and commonly die within a year or two if they are near the home or in and irrigated lawn area.

I know that this is a topic that has been brought up on this forum quite a bit so I thought that I would share my experience and cost to give others an idea. It pays to get multiple bids!!! We contacted two reputable tree removal companies, both local, both insured and bonded and one gave us a quote for almost $1000 to have the tree removed and the stump ground. The other bid was $300. Just like anything else, shop around.

Thank you, wysiwyg, for that information.

We lost over 18 post oaks on our 1 acre lot for this very reason.

If a post oak makes it past about 5 years after some sort of root disturbance it will have a good chance of making it. But as mentioned, they are VERY sensitive. I think they are beautiful trees, but they just cant handle construction and St Augustine grass. Too much water or too much disturbance and they just die. We have one rightnow I'm going to remove here in a week or two.

I'm very interested in this post oak question. I love post oaks; I used to live in a neighborhood with hundreds of 'em -- the houses were built right in the middle of stands of mostly post oak, a few cedar elms, and all the yards were St Augustine. (The grass was patchy because of all the shade, but it hung on.) Have been there recently and it's still as thick as forest.

Can one protect the trees by just taking care during construction? Maybe the builders avoided compacting the dirt over their roots? It was a neighborhood that the builder himself lived in, so maybe he was extra fussy. Should I ever be in such a situation, I'd like to know how one might protect the trees, and I'm also just curious

That is a real good question, Sue.
Me too.

I am certainly not an expert, but I don't think St. Augustine grass itself is the problem. The problem is soil compaction from construction, too much water in the soil from irrigation systems, and chemical fertilizers that are typically used on turf grass.

We live in a post oak savanna, so under natural conditions they thrive here. When we alter the natural conditions, these trees are very easy to kill.

My suggestion for anyone wanting to preserve their post oak trees would be to preserve the natural environment around them as much as possible.