How to Get Rid of Tree Branches in Polk County, FL

A tree comes down in the yard, or the trimmer leaves a mountain by the fence, and now you own a pile of limbs. In Polk County you've got three ways to deal with it: drag it to the curb for your regular yard waste program, haul it to a county site yourself, or call me and I load it the way it fell. Here's what each one actually asks of you, with the county numbers I could verify.

Why won't the curb take the pile the way it is?

Because curb programs want small, tidy, and cut short. Every program I've seen has some version of the same rules: pieces under a set length, bundled or in a can, and only so much per week. A live oak limb that's fourteen feet long and still has the leaves on it fails every one of those. So does a whole pile from a tree service that quoted you "cut only."

Your city or the county sets the exact rule for your address, and I'm not going to guess it here. What I can tell you is the practical version: if you can't lift the piece by yourself and it wouldn't fit in a pickup bed, the curb isn't taking it this week.

What do the county sites charge for yard waste?

If you have a truck and a Saturday, the county sites are cheap. These are the numbers each county posts on its own pages. Hours and rules change, so check the linked page before you drive.

Notice the Lake County rule. Four feet long, six inches thick. That's the county telling you to cut everything before you bring it. The Polk flat rate in Haines City is the easiest deal on the table for a Davenport or Haines City address, as long as the whole pile fits your truck and trailer and you're willing to load it twice, once at home and once at the gate.

Hand loading or the grapple: which one is your pile?

Most branch piles get loaded by hand. Two of us, a pile of limbs, a dump trailer, and it's stacked and strapped before you've had time to watch. Small brush, palm fronds, hedge trimmings, the stuff from a normal trim job: hand load, every time.

The grapple comes out when the pieces are too big for hands. The Kubota track loader with the grapple picks up a whole oak limb, trunk sections, root balls and the tangled mess a storm leaves, and sets it in the trailer in a few passes. It's the difference between a crew spending an afternoon and a machine spending twenty minutes. If your pile has anything two people can't carry, say so when you text the photo and I'll bring it.

Either way, you do nothing. No cutting, no bundling, no dragging it to the road.

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What does it cost by the trailer?

Branches are priced like everything else I haul: by how much of the trailer they fill.

• Quarter trailer, $225. One tree's worth of trim, a hedge row, the pile behind the shed.
• Half trailer, $350. A big limb that came down, or a full afternoon of trimming.
• Full trailer, $700. A whole tree, or the pile a tree crew left when they were paid to cut and not to haul.

The number includes the loading, the drive and the dump fee. Brush is bulky and light, so it stacks well and I can usually get more in than you'd think. Trunk rounds are the opposite: small in the pile, heavy on the scale, and the reason I want to see the photo before I name a size. A smaller pile than you described pays the smaller price.

If it's a whole lot of trees and not a pile, that's a different job. The brush removal page explains where the machine day starts.

What Big Rob's does here

The tree branch and limb removal page covers the everyday pile, and yard waste removal covers fronds, clippings and the rest. Same day is realistic in Davenport and Haines City. The acreage lots around Polk City and Lake Wales are where the grapple earns its keep, and Winter Haven is a regular run.

Text a photo of the pile to (863) 225-2147 and I'll tell you what trailer it is.