Land & Lot Clearing in Chattanooga, TN

Land and lot clearing in Chattanooga usually means one of three things: getting a wooded lot ready for a house, an addition or a garage; taking back a backyard or fence line that brush, volunteer trees and vines have swallowed; or opening up a hillside so it can be used or seen again. The climate here grows things fast. With long, hot, humid summers and well over 50 inches of rain a year, a lot left alone for a few seasons fills in with sweetgum, Callery pear, privet, honeysuckle and, on sunny edges, kudzu.

Kudzu

Kudzu covers millions of acres across the Southeast, and Tennessee has a lot of it. Once established, it can grow about a foot a day in summer, climbing over shrubs and trees, wrapping trunks, breaking branches with its weight and shading out what is underneath; it can even pull trees over. Clearing kudzu off a lot is a two-part job. First the vines and the trees they have damaged are cut and removed. Then the root crowns have to be dealt with, because kudzu regrows from them. Repeated mowing every month or two through the growing season, digging out crowns, or herbicide applied in summer and early fall (when it works best) are the usual follow-ups, and none of them is a one-visit cure. Some property owners in Tennessee use goats; one clearing outfit reported about 200 goats eat an acre of vegetation in a day.

Selective clearing

Clearing does not have to mean scraping a lot bare. On most residential lots it makes sense to mark the trees worth keeping first: healthy oaks, hickories, tulip poplars or a well-placed pine. Then the brush, vines, dead trees and weak or invasive volunteers around them come out. Keeping good trees saves shade and soil, and on a slope it keeps roots holding the ground.

Slopes and soil

Much of the buildable land left around Chattanooga is on ridges and hillsides, and bare soil on a slope washes away fast in a heavy rain. We cut on slopes rather than pulling stumps and roots out wholesale unless the job calls for grading, and we leave the ground covered with chips where it makes sense. If you are building, your builder or engineer will have erosion and grading requirements for the site; we clear to those plans.

Before clearing starts

We walk the lot with you to mark property lines, trees to keep, wet areas, steep banks and anything buried. In Chattanooga, the 2025 tree ordinance is aimed at development: building projects must account for 36 inches of tree caliper per acre developed, by preserving trees, replanting or paying into the city Tree Bank. If the lot is part of a building project, check with your builder and the Land Development Office before trees are cut. Trees near EPB lines are the utility's to handle.

What happens to the material

Brush and small trees are chipped; chips can be spread on site as a ground cover or hauled away. Larger logs can be cut for firewood, left for you, or removed. Stumps can be ground below grade or left for a grading contractor to pull, depending on what comes next for the lot.