Our Story
Platte County, Nebraska tree removal, done right.
A Local Crew That Learned Trees on the Line
Wade Kucera grew up on a row-crop and cattle farm north of Platte Center. He put in four seasons on a utility line-clearance crew working Platte, Colfax and Butler counties, plus two winters of cleanup after ice storms. That is where he learned how a wind-loaded cottonwood fails, and how a borer-killed ash holds a saw cut for a second before letting go.
In 2016 he opened Platte Valley Tree Co. in Columbus, Nebraska, with a bucket truck, a chipper and a stump grinder, and he still lives in town. Today we are a crew of four covering Platte County and the towns around it. We do tree work only, and every price is in writing before a saw starts.
The trees here are cottonwoods along both rivers, green ash dying since the emerald ash borer was confirmed in Columbus in August 2021, hackberry, bur oak and honeylocust on older streets, and silver maple and Siberian elm planted in the 1950s and splitting now. Add a few American elms, black walnut in the bottoms, shelterbelt redcedar and pine lost to pine wilt, and front-yard Colorado spruce.
The sandy loam grinds easily but lets a root plate rock loose in a wet spring. We also know the city's rules for boulevard trees between the sidewalk and the curb.
Four Services
Tree removal, stump grinding, trimming and land clearing make up the whole list. Mowing, bed mulch, landscaping and commercial contracts stay off it, so the crew stays with the homeowners and farm families who call. If your job falls outside the four, we will point you elsewhere.
Our Why
After storms, Platte County homeowners kept getting two poor choices: a big outfit rolling in on US-30 that quoted high and left the brush, or a pickup-and-chainsaw crew with no insurance and no city registration. Wade wanted a third option.
That meant a small local crew, registered with the City of Columbus and insured, that rigs a backyard maple as carefully as a limb lying in a service drop, and tells you honestly what the tree needs.
Cottonwood, silver maple, Siberian elm, bur oak, spruce, windbreak cedar and dead ash each fail their own way, and sandy loam changes how roots hold after a wet May. We check root flare to crown first, and we know which trees sit on the boulevard.
Rigging is never skipped to save an hour. Wade or Miguel walks every property before a plan is set, and when a trunk must drop onto the street, we file the city's 24-hour notice and set out the cones.
The estimate is written before work begins. A borer-killed ash over the driveway gets called what it is, and so does a bur oak that has leaned toward the pasture for decades and is perfectly fine.
We finish when the wood, brush and chips are gone and the yard looks as it did, minus the tree. Burning is banned inside Columbus and needs a fire district permit outside it, so everything leaves on our truck.
We are a crew of four on purpose. Meet the crew behind every job.
Call or request a free written estimate.
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