Land Clearing in Nacogdoches County, TX: Nacogdoches, Garrison, Cushing

Land Clearing Services Available in Nacogdoches County

Six services carry posted prices here, and most land clearing projects use one or two of them.

• Forestry mulching services under standing timber: $1,200 to $2,000 an acre.
• Lot clearing for a homesite: a half-acre lot is one skid steer day, $2,800.
• Clearing brush and underbrushing along a timber tract edge, by the day.
• Stump grinding: $4 per inch of diameter, $175 minimum per stump.
• Site prep and dirt work services: grubbing, rough grading, pad drainage at $160 an hour with operator.
• Bush hogging on agricultural land: $60 to $90 an acre, $400 minimum.

Our crews have the equipment to handle 8-inch stems on the skid steer and the 300-hp mulcher for anything bigger. Tree removal on one lot and storm cleanup go by the hour. Slabs, wells and septic are other people's trades, and I can point you to them.

Residential Land Clearing for Homesites Along US 59, SH 21 and SH 7

The county recorded 31 single-family permits in 2025 in the Census Building Permits Survey, and that number badly understates the work. Most tracts sit outside city limits and need no building permit at all. Most residential jobs run two to ten acres of loblolly over yaupon off SH 21 toward Appleby or SH 7 toward Cushing. The homeowner wants the sawtimber standing and the undergrowth gone before the slab crew shows. That is a skid steer day per acre and a half, $2,800, trees and branches mulched where they stand. Small residential lots in town pay the same day rate. Site preparation on bigger tracts adds pad grubbing and a drainage swale.

Forestry Mulching and Brush Clearing Across Nacogdoches County

Forestry mulching puts the wood back on the ground as a two to four inch mulch layer, and on this sandy loam that layer holds moisture, slows erosion on the slopes toward the Angelina River and shades the yaupon seed bank. On our jobs north of town the understory runs sweetgum, yaupon, privet and loblolly saplings. Pine and hardwood over 8 inches go to the 300-hp mulcher at $4,200 a day plus transport. Selective clearing is the ask: open the floor, keep the sawtimber on 15 to 20 foot spacing. I walked a tract last fall at roughly 85 percent ground cover under 60-foot pine; the crew left it under 5 percent in two days. Yaupon will overgrow that floor in four years unless a bush hog follows.

Terrain, Soil and Vegetation on Piney Woods Timber Acreage

The county's base is sandy loam over clay, and the mulcher rarely sees mud. West of US 59 the ground rolls toward the Angelina River, where hardwood bottoms carry FEMA-mapped floodplain. East of it the loblolly stands flatten into planted rows. Lots near Lake Nacogdoches hold the thickest yaupon in the county, often a solid wall under mature pine. I read site conditions on the first pass: slope, standing water, stem size, distance to a hard road. Woodland on 20-foot pine spacing runs 3 to 4 acres a day; a solid yaupon floor cuts that to 2.

Texas A&M Forest Service, Burn Bans and Timber Rules Before Land Clearing

Texas requires no state permit to clear your own land, and Nacogdoches County's rules are mostly about fire and timber. Burn bans come down from the county judge or commissioners court, and TCEQ outdoor burning rules apply to piles in between. Mulching leaves no pile. Texas A&M Forest Service publishes the county wildfire risk rating and prescribed-burn notices, and its timber-sale guidance is worth reading before you grind a stand that a mill would buy. Stephen F. Austin State University's forestry program is in town, and its loblolly thinning bulletins are worth reading. Along the river the county permits dirt work on FEMA-mapped floodplain.

Areas We Serve in Nacogdoches County: Garrison, Cushing, Appleby and the County Seat

The county seat has its own page and carries the residential and commercial work: infill lots, commercial development pads along US 59, tree clearing on a new fence line at the edge of town. Cushing, Appleby and Chireno bring two to twenty acre timber homesites. Nacogdoches, TX and the surrounding areas into Angelina, Rusk, Shelby and San Augustine counties sit inside the service area, and the far east edge may carry transport on the 300-hp machine. Of the 254 counties in Texas, this is the one where the timber question comes up first. The East Texas page covers the region.