Jacksonville & Northeast Florida ◆ Licensed, insured, workers' comp
Free estimates ◆ 904-312-9391
Three tracked spider lifts extended into the sky above the Sanford's Tree Service yard, with the full crew, two chip trucks, chippers and stump grinders lined up in front.

The tree is in the backyard. That's fine.

Tracked lifts that fit through a side gate, roll across your grass without tearing it up, and reach the top of a live oak — so the hard-to-get-to trees in Jacksonville stop being a problem, and stop being a premium.

Licensed Insured Workers' comp FL DOT #1222050 ★★★★½  4.5 from 125 Google reviews
Why we're the call for the awkward ones

Most of the cost of a tree is getting to it.

Anyone can drop a tree in an open front yard. The quotes get expensive — or get declined — when the tree is behind the house, over the pool, wedged against a fence, or leaning on a roof. That's the work we built the fleet around.

01

No crane in the street

A crane job means road closure, permits, and a line item that can double the bill. Our lifts drive to the tree instead of reaching over your house at it.

02

Your lawn survives

Rubber tracks spread the weight instead of concentrating it on four tires. No ruts across the yard, no torn-up sod to re-lay after we leave.

03

Through the side gate

The lifts fold down narrow enough to walk between a house and a fence, then unfold and go up once they're in the back. Fences stay where they are.

04

We leave it clean

Chipped, hauled, raked and blown down — driveway, sidewalk and street included. The tree goes away and so does every sign that we were there.

The signature move

It goes over the fence, not through it.

Side yard Fence Canopy
  • Reaches high into the canopyThe tops of mature live oaks and pines come down in controlled pieces, not one uncontrolled drop.
  • Sets up on turf, pavers or a slopeOutriggers spread the load, so it can stand where a bucket truck simply can't park.
  • Two lifts on one tree when it's warrantedTwo operators working opposite sides is faster and safer than one climber doing it twice.
  • Climbers when the lift isn't the answerSome trees still want a rope and a saddle. We do both, and pick whichever suits your yard.
Two red tracked spider lifts extended high into Spanish-moss-covered live oaks above a blue-gray house, with crew members in high-visibility shirts working from the baskets.
Two lifts working the same canopy over a house in a moss-draped Jacksonville oak — no crane, no road closure, and the homeowner's roof untouched.
A backyard tree removal in progress: a partially dismantled trunk still standing, log rounds on the grass, a compact tracked loader and a spider lift working near the house — while the wide lawn in the foreground is completely unmarked.
Mid-removal, with the trunk still coming down. The lawn in front of it hasn't been touched.
What it looks like when we're working

The proof isn't the tree. It's the grass.

Every tree company in Jacksonville will tell you they respect your property. It's the easiest promise in the trade to make and the hardest one to keep, because it isn't really about care — it's about what you drive onto the yard.

Tracked machines, rigging that lowers wood instead of dropping it, and plywood over anything soft. That's why the photo above is a job in progress and not a photo we had to take from an angle.

See more of the work
What we do

Residential and commercial tree work across the Northside to the beaches.

Tree removal

Whole-tree and sectional removals — including hazardous leaners, trees against structures, and the ones other crews quoted a crane for.

Get a price

Trimming & pruning

Canopy thinning, deadwooding, raising clearance over roofs and driveways, and structural pruning that keeps a tree healthy instead of topping it.

Get a price

Stump grinding

Ground well below grade so you can sod, plant or pour over it. Grindings hauled off or raked back in — your call.

Get a price

Palm trimming

Sabal, queen and washingtonia palms cleaned up properly — fronds, boots and seed pods — on a schedule that suits the species.

Get a price

Storm & emergency

Trees on roofs, blocked driveways and hurricane cleanup. Call and we'll tell you honestly where you land in the queue.

Get a price

Lot clearing & hauling

Building lots, overgrown parcels and fence lines cleared, plus grapple-truck hauling for wood you've already got on the ground.

Get a price
Real jobs, our own photos

Every picture on this site is a Sanford's crew on a Jacksonville property.

No stock photography, no borrowed equipment shots. If it's on this page, we did it.

A climber in a high-visibility shirt roped into the top of a tall pine, taking it down in sections.
Sectional pine removal, climber on rope
A spider lift squeezed into a narrow side yard, its boom extended up and over the roofline to reach a pine beside the house.
Side-yard setup, boom over the roof
A Vermeer SC552 stump grinder mid-cut with dust in the air and a wide bed of fresh grindings.
Stump ground out below grade
A grapple truck lifting large pine logs into its bed at dusk while a homeowner walks across the lawn.
Grapple-loading logs at the end of a day
Two freshly trimmed sabal palms in front of a house with a clean, undamaged lawn.
Palms cleaned up, yard left tidy
The Sanford's crew in high-visibility shirts and hard hats with traffic cones out, clearing debris from a residential street under mossy oaks.
Cones out, street cleared before we go

Tree on the house? Call, don't email.

Storm work moves fast and the queue is first come. A phone call gets you a real answer about when we can be there.

904-312-9391
Where we work

Based on Spring Park Road, out across Duval and St. Johns.

We're a Jacksonville company working Jacksonville trees — the live oaks in San Marco and Ortega, the pines out in Mandarin and Julington Creek, the palms at the beaches.

  • San Marco
  • Mandarin
  • Riverside & Avondale
  • Ortega
  • Southside
  • Arlington
  • Julington Creek
  • Fruit Cove
  • Orange Park
  • Fleming Island
  • Ponte Vedra
  • Nocatee
  • Jacksonville Beach
  • Atlantic Beach
  • Neptune Beach
  • St. Johns
4.5
125 Google reviews
What people say

A hundred and twenty-five neighbors have already been through this.

We'd rather point you at the reviews than pick our favorite ones and print them here. Read the good and the middling — then call us and ask about whichever one you want to ask about.

Read the reviews on Google
Free estimate

Send us a photo of the tree.

Nobody can price a tree they haven't seen — and you shouldn't have to wait three days for someone to drive out and look. Send a couple of pictures from your phone and we'll come back with a real number or tell you plainly that we need to see it in person.

Prefer to talk? 904-312-9391.

Two or three shots — one from a distance and one from the base — is usually enough to price it.

We'll only use your details to quote this job. No lists, no resale.

Jacksonville, FL

Get the awkward one off your list.

Free estimates, licensed and insured crews, and the equipment to reach it without wrecking the yard on the way.