PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Cedar is the reason most Texas landowners call somebody in the first place. It takes pasture, closes fence lines, swallows views and builds a fire load nobody wants next to a house. We clear it with forestry mulchers, keep the trees you actually want, and price the work in published machine days rather than a number pulled out of the air.
West of I-35 it is Ashe juniper, the multi-trunked scrubby one that takes over Hill Country slopes. East of it, it is eastern redcedar, single-trunked and straighter. Neither is a true cedar and nobody in Texas cares, but they grow differently and they clear differently, so the machine and the day count are not the same.
This is the part that matters most and almost nobody explains it. Cut mesquite resprouts from the crown below ground and comes back thicker. Cedar does not. Take it down and that tree is finished. What comes back arrives as seedlings from seed, which is a slower and much more manageable problem.
Because there is no resprouting to fight, running it through a forestry mulcher is a real solution rather than a delay. You do not need to dig the root out to be rid of the tree, and on most acreage digging it out would be spending money for nothing.
A cleared cedar brake does not stay clear forever. Birds and existing seed do their work and young cedar comes up over the following years. The good news is that young cedar is cheap and fast to clear, so keeping ground open once it is open costs a fraction of opening it in the first place.
The job we are known for. Cedar comes out, live oaks and hardwoods stay, and the operator works around what you flagged rather than through it. It is slower per acre than clear cutting and it is the reason most people buy acreage in the first place.
Where the cedar has closed completely and there is nothing underneath worth saving, the whole stand goes down and gets mulched in place. Fast, and the mulch layer holds the soil through the first storm after.
Closed cedar canopy shades out grass, and the ground under an old brake is usually bare. Opening it back up is the first step in pasture reclamation, and the grass response is the part landowners actually notice.
Cedar is what closed the fence row and swallowed the ranch road. Both get opened back to a working width, wire respected where it stays, corridor left ready where it does not. See fence line clearing.
Cedar against a house is a fire problem and a view problem at the same time. Clearing back from structures and opening sightlines is common Hill Country work, and it is usually a short job with a large visible result.
Young cedar clears fast and cheap. Coming back through every few years to take the seedlings costs a fraction of letting it close and starting again, and it is the single best value in this trade.
$3,000 per day for a skid steer mulcher with transport included, or $4,000 per day plus transport for a high horsepower dedicated mulcher. One day is the minimum on either. Our published price page works those rates out into per-acre figures so you can check the arithmetic.
Light cedar and understory lands around $1,300 to $2,000 an acre. Mixed cedar and mesquite with stems from four to eight inches runs $1,600 to $2,700. Heavy old thicket with eight inch and larger stems runs $2,700 to $4,000. Those hold once a job is big enough to spread a day across; below that the day minimum governs.
Stem size and how tightly the stand has closed, first and always. Then whether you want it clear cut or worked selectively around keepers, how steep and how accessible the ground is, and how far the machine has to travel to reach you.
If a slab, a pad or a road bed is going in, the stumps and roots have to come out and that is grubbing, a separate machine and a separate line. For everything going back to pasture or trail, mulching alone is the honest answer and we will say so.
Quote first, walk after you approve it. Same order as every trade we run.
Photos of the stand, rough acreage, your county, and whether there are trees you want kept. That last one changes the pace more than anything else.
Machine days on paper: the machine, the days, transport. Priced from cedar country we have already cleared rather than from a guess.
Once you approve the estimate we walk it together and flag the keepers before any iron moves. Oaks worth saving get marked while everyone is standing in front of them.
The lowboy brings the mulcher sized to the stand. We stage where you tell us and work around gates, stock and anything you have asked us to protect.
Cedar goes down and through the head, mulch stays on the ground as a soil cover. You are welcome on site, outside the working radius, watching it open up.
A slow lap around the finished ground together, against the quote. Keepers standing, mulch spread, edges where you wanted them.
The single biggest cost difference in this trade is stem size. A stand of young cedar goes down at a walking pace. The same ground left another fifteen years becomes eight inch trunks that slow the head right down, and the bill roughly doubles for exactly the same acreage.
People sometimes expect bare dirt afterwards. What you get is a mulch layer, and that layer is doing work: holding soil through the first downpour, keeping moisture in, and slowing the seedlings that want to come back. Pushed and burned ground does none of it.
Landowners clear cedar for a lot of reasons and the one that consistently delivers is grazing. A closed canopy shades out everything underneath, and opening it puts sunlight back on ground that has not seen any in years. What that does for water is argued about; what it does for grass is not.
Our operators are good at working around trees, but nobody knows which ones you care about better than you do. Walking the property and marking keepers before the machine starts is fifteen minutes that changes what you get.
Excellent work. Our property was complex as we wanted to save some trees, and the operator was amazing at maneuvering around them to clear the 7 acres we cleared.
Mike DiVincent, Google review
We live on 12 acres off 1431. When we purchased our property we absolutely fell in love with the amazing views of the Hill Country but were strapped with inheriting tons of cedars, a few pitiful oaks, and lots of debris.
Jim Abshire, Google review
Contracted Pierce to clear 5 acres of land. They did quick, quality, and outstanding work removing all the requested trees and preserving the oaks. Definitely recommend!
Trevor Seret, Google review
Deciding between clearing everything and working under your trees? The brush clearing vs underbrushing guide explains both, with published costs.
Wondering what all that ground cedar does for your land once we leave? The cedar mulch guide covers how long the mulch lasts, the termite and acidity myths, and why the layer is worth more on your ground than in a bag.
Light cedar and understory runs about $1,300 to $2,000 an acre, mixed cedar and mesquite $1,600 to $2,700, and heavy old thicket $2,700 to $4,000. Those come from our published day rates of $3,000 for a skid steer mulcher with transport included and $4,000 plus transport for a high horsepower machine. One day is the minimum.
Not from the stump. Cedar does not resprout the way mesquite does, so the tree you clear is finished. What returns comes from seed as seedlings over the following years, and clearing those while they are young is fast and cheap compared with letting the stand close again.
Only if something is getting built there. For pasture, trails and open acreage the mulcher takes the tree down and the stump can stay, because it will not resprout. If a slab, pad or road bed is going in, the roots need to come out and that is grubbing.
Yes, and it is most of what we do. Selective clearing works around the trees you flag. Walk the property and mark the keepers before we start, because you know which ones matter and we do not.
Nothing, in Texas usage. Ashe juniper is what most Hill Country people mean by cedar. East of I-35 the cedar is usually eastern redcedar instead, which grows straighter and single-trunked. Neither is botanically a cedar and it makes no difference to the work.
It goes through the mulching head and stays on your ground as a mulch layer. No burning, no hauling, no disposal line on the invoice. The mulch holds soil, keeps moisture in and slows the seedlings coming back.
We work year round. Winter has the advantage that you can see the ground and the stand more clearly, but cedar does not care and neither do the machines. Availability matters more than season.
Send photos and a rough acreage to 512-400-2693 and you will have a ballpark in machine days the same day, worked out from the rates published on this site.
Cedar work we have documented recently: 34 acres of cedar at Dripping Springs and 22 acres of cedar at Jacksboro. Each one is written up with the day count, the machine used and what it cost.