34 Acre Cedar Clearing in Dripping Springs, Texas

Thirty four acres of cedar taken off a Hill Country ranch near Dripping Springs. This is a return client who brings us out once a year for two weeks to push the cedar back a little further. Every oak on the place stayed.

Open ground with the oaks left standing after cedar clearing in Dripping Springs Texas

A ranch that gets a little of itself back every year

This is a two hundred acre ranch that had been overrun with cedar. The owner does not try to clear it all at once, which on a place this size would be a very large cheque. Instead he brings us out once a year for two weeks and we take back as much as the machine can cover.

This year that came to thirty four acres in fourteen days.

Why the annual pass works

Cedar does not stop. Clear a pasture once and walk away and the seedlings are back in a few years. Coming back on a cycle means the ground you cleared before stays clear while new ground gets opened, and the cost lands as a predictable annual line rather than one enormous project.

The part the owner notices most is the pasture. Ground we cleared in earlier years comes back in grass, so each visit you can read the history of the work in what is growing.

Steep, rocky, and not one oak touched

The country here is steep and rocky, which limits the angles a machine can safely take and slows every pass. The standing instruction on this ranch is that no oak gets damaged, so the mulcher works around them rather than through them. That is slower than clearing everything in front of the head, and it is the whole point. Cedar is what you are paying to remove. The oaks are what makes the place worth clearing.

Views nobody knew were there

The thing that keeps a job like this satisfying is what turns up underneath. Thirty four acres of cedar coming off a Hill Country ranch opens sight lines that had been closed for decades.

Before and after

More of our work