Westwood Hills is one of the smallest cities in Kansas — a few hundred homes, mature lots, and trees that have been growing since the Truman administration. That’s beautiful. It’s also a real responsibility. When a silver maple planted in 1955 has been growing for 70 years, it doesn’t just shade your yard anymore — it reaches over your roofline, your driveway, your neighbor’s fence, and possibly the power line easement along State Line Road.
That’s not a problem you manage with a ladder and a handsaw. What good professional tree care actually gives you is peace of mind that’s specific to where you live. In a neighborhood this compact, a tree that fails in a storm doesn’t fall into open space — it falls on something. A proper assessment, a well-executed trim, or a careful removal means you stop watching that one branch every time the wind picks up.
After the work is done, your yard is clean. Not mostly clean — fully cleaned. No piles of brush stacked against the fence, no wood chips scattered across the driveway, no call from your neighbor about the debris that blew into their yard. That’s the standard every job here is held to, and it’s the kind of result that actually matters in a community where everyone can see everyone else’s property.
Squirrel Master Tree Services LLC is based in Kansas City Metropolitan Area, MO, KS — which puts us right next door to Westwood Hills. We’re not a regional franchise routing calls through a dispatch center. We’re a small, family-owned crew that works in neighborhoods like Westwood Hills regularly, and we understand what the work actually looks like when homes are close together and the trees are old.
Over the past 10-plus years, we’ve removed more than 1,200 problem trees across the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, MO area with a 100% safety record. That number matters in a place like Westwood Hills, where there’s no open field to drop a tree into. Every removal here is a precision job — working around rooflines, fences, driveways, and neighboring properties. We’ve done that work hundreds of times without a single accident.
We’re fully licensed and insured in Kansas, which isn’t just a formality. Kansas requires an arborist license for tree work, and hiring a crew without it puts the liability on you if something goes wrong on your property. That’s not a risk worth taking, especially in Johnson County where property values are high and the stakes are real.
It starts with a free estimate — and for most jobs, we can get out the same day you call. You don’t have to wait a week to find out what you’re dealing with or what it’s going to cost. When we arrive, we assess the tree in person: its size, its condition, its proximity to your home and your neighbor’s property, and any signs of disease, structural weakness, or pest damage.
In Johnson County, Emerald Ash Borer is an active concern, and a lot of homeowners don’t realize their ash trees are already compromised until someone with a trained eye takes a look. Once we’ve assessed the situation, we give you a straight recommendation. Sometimes that’s removal. Sometimes a targeted trim is genuinely all the tree needs, and we’ll tell you that even if removal would have been the bigger job.
You get a clear scope of work and a fair price before anything starts — no surprises mid-job, no add-ons after the fact. The work itself is planned around the specific conditions of your property. Westwood Hills lots are compact, and the homes are close. That means we’re not just cutting — we’re working in sections, managing where material falls, and protecting everything around the tree throughout the process.
When the job is done, we clean up completely. All debris is removed, the area is cleared, and if you want to keep any of the wood for personal use, just say the word before we haul it out.
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Tree removal is the most visible part of what we do, but it’s rarely the whole picture. In Westwood Hills, where the housing stock dates back to the mid-20th century, the trees that come with these properties have had decades to grow into the structures around them — rooflines, sidewalks, underground utilities, and neighboring lots. Removal in this environment requires more than a chainsaw. It requires a crew that knows how to dismantle a large tree in sections, control where every piece lands, and leave the property in better shape than we found it.
Beyond removal, tree trimming and pruning are what keep your property safe between the bigger jobs. Trimming shapes the canopy and manages clearance from your home. Pruning targets dead or structurally compromised branches before they become the branch that comes through your ceiling during an April storm. Both services are available as standalone work, and both are commonly needed on the mature trees throughout Westwood Hills.
Stump grinding is a separate service from tree removal — and it’s worth knowing that upfront, because a lot of homeowners assume the stump disappears with the tree. It doesn’t, unless you specifically request grinding. We offer it as part of the same visit or as a standalone job. We also handle tree health assessments for homeowners who aren’t sure whether a tree is worth saving or needs to come out, and land clearing for properties where multiple trees or heavy brush need to be addressed at once. Whatever the scope, the work comes with full cleanup and a crew that treats your property like we’d want our own treated.
Westwood Hills is its own incorporated city within Johnson County, and like many small municipalities in this part of Kansas, it maintains its own city code governing what can and can’t be done with trees on private property — particularly trees near the street right-of-way or along property lines. The rules aren’t always obvious, and they can vary depending on the size of the tree, its location on your lot, and whether it’s considered a street tree maintained by the city.
Before any removal work begins, it’s worth a quick call to Westwood Hills City Hall to confirm whether your specific situation requires a permit. When we come out for your free estimate, we can help you think through the scope of the job and flag anything that might need a permit check before we proceed. That kind of upfront clarity is part of how we avoid surprises — for you and for us.
This is one of the most common questions we hear, and the honest answer is that you usually can’t tell from the ground — at least not with confidence. A tree can look perfectly healthy from the outside while dealing with internal decay, root damage, or structural weakness that only shows up when someone gets up close and knows what to look for. Fungal growth near the base, cracks in major limbs, a noticeable lean that wasn’t there last year, or hollow spots in the trunk are all signs that something’s wrong.
In Westwood Hills, where homes sit close together and trees have been growing for 60 to 80 years, the cost of getting this wrong is high. A failing limb doesn’t have much room to go before it hits something. We offer on-site health assessments as part of our free estimate visit — we look at the tree’s structure, its condition, and the risk it poses to your property and your neighbors’. If a trim genuinely solves the problem, we’ll tell you that. If removal is the safer call, we’ll explain exactly why.
Full cleanup is included on every job — that’s not an add-on or an upgrade, it’s just how we work. When the tree is down, all branches, debris, and wood material are removed from your property. We don’t leave piles at the curb for you to deal with later, and we don’t leave sawdust and wood chips scattered across your lawn or driveway.
If you want to keep any of the wood — for a fire pit, for a neighbor, for whatever reason — just let us know before we start hauling. We’re happy to cut it to a usable length and leave it in a spot that works for you. In a community like Westwood Hills, where front yards and shared spaces are well-maintained and visible to everyone on the block, the cleanup is just as important as the work itself. We take both seriously.
Tree removal pricing varies based on the size of the tree, its condition, how close it is to your home or neighboring structures, and how accessible the site is for the crew and equipment. Nationally, most tree removals fall somewhere in the range of $400 to $1,200 for a standard job, with larger or more complex removals — like a 70-foot oak hanging over a roofline in a tight residential lot — running higher depending on the specifics.
We don’t publish a fixed price list because no two jobs are identical, and a quote that doesn’t account for your actual tree and your actual property isn’t worth much. What we do offer is a free, same-day estimate so you know exactly what you’re looking at before you commit to anything. There’s no pressure and no obligation. You get a clear number, a clear scope, and you decide from there.
Yes, and it’s been confirmed throughout Johnson County and the broader Kansas City Metropolitan Area, MO metro. Emerald Ash Borer has been systematically working through the region for years, and ash trees — which were among the most commonly planted species in mid-century residential developments like Westwood Hills — are highly vulnerable. An untreated ash tree that’s been infested typically declines and dies within three to five years.
The tricky part is that EAB damage isn’t always visible until the tree is already in serious decline. Early signs include thinning in the upper canopy, increased woodpecker activity, and S-shaped galleries under the bark — but you often need a trained eye to spot them before the damage is severe. If you have ash trees on your Westwood Hills property and you’re not sure whether they’ve been treated or assessed, it’s worth having someone take a look. Depending on the stage of infestation and the overall health of the tree, treatment may still be an option — but in many cases, removal and replacement is the more practical path. We can assess that on-site and give you a straight answer.
The most important things to verify before hiring any tree crew are licensing, insurance, and a track record of actual work in residential neighborhoods. Kansas requires an arborist license for tree work — not every state does, which means not every company operating here has bothered to get one. If a crew isn’t licensed and someone gets hurt on your property, that liability can fall on you as the homeowner. Ask for proof of both their license and their liability insurance before anyone picks up a chainsaw.
Beyond credentials, pay attention to how we communicate. Do we give you a written estimate? Do we explain what’s included and what isn’t? Do we tell you upfront whether stump grinding is part of the job or a separate cost? A company that’s vague on those details before the work starts tends to be vague on them after, too. In Westwood Hills, where homes are close together and a poorly managed job can affect your neighbor’s property just as easily as your own, the crew you hire needs to be precise, accountable, and experienced with exactly this kind of work — not just tree removal in general, but tree removal in tight, established residential neighborhoods where there’s no margin for error.
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