Service Area · Kent & Auburn, WA
The work here splits pretty cleanly between two kinds of property. The hillside neighborhoods — East Hill, West Hill, Lea Hill — have mature conifers and big ornamentals on lots developed in the 1980s and 1990s, with trees that are now well past the age where it makes sense to ignore them. The valley-floor and older in-town streets have bigleaf maple, cherry, and overgrown laurel hedges that need regular shaping or a full restoration pass. Most of what we do here is maintenance — hedge trimming, tree pruning, stump grinding after a removal.
The Green River runs through the middle of both cities, and any work near the river corridor requires a closer look at critical-area designations before we scope anything. Kent and Auburn each have their own tree codes. We pull parcel-level designations before we quote.
Valley lots, hillside subdivisions, Green River edge work, and a lot of hedge maintenance.
01
Restoration pruning on bigleaf maple and mature ornamentals in East Hill, West Hill, and Lea Hill neighborhoods.
02
Formal hedge maintenance — laurel, photinia, boxwood, arborvitae — along residential property lines.
03
Conifer risk assessments on Douglas fir and cedar standing over homes on the hillside subdivisions.
04
Green River-adjacent work with critical-area buffer requirements in mind.
05
Stump grinding and HOA-scale multi-stump programs for managed communities across both cities.
Kent tree code
regulates significant tree removal on private property; permit required before removal.
Auburn tree code
separate municipal regulations with its own significant tree thresholds and permit process.
Green River shoreline
properties within the shoreline jurisdiction require additional review for removal and major pruning.
King County critical areas
apply to unincorporated parcels on the urban fringe of both cities.
THE CODE
Two city codes plus the Green River shoreline. We identify which jurisdiction applies and check the parcel-level designations before anything is scoped.
ON THE GROUND
Valley ornamentals on the flat, conifers on the hills, and cottonwood and alder lining the river.
Bigleaf maple
dominant front-yard and backyard tree in the older residential neighborhoods; large specimens over driveways and structures are common.
Douglas fir
the hillside conifer; East Hill and West Hill lots have mature specimens that were young when the houses were built.
Western red cedar
common throughout; heat-dome top dieback from 2021 still present on some properties.
Red alder
along the Green River corridor; roughly a 60-year lifespan, and many stands in the valley are approaching it.
Black cottonwood
the riparian giant along the Green River; brittle wood, prone to calm-weather failure.
SR-167 runs straight south from our Renton shop into Kent and Auburn — most of the valley is 15 to 22 minutes.
