Lot and cedar clearing in Murfreesboro — from thicket to building pad
Rutherford County land that's been left alone for twenty years comes back as a wall of eastern red cedar, hackberry and privet over limestone. A forestry mulcher turns it into a cleared pad and a mulch bed in a day or two.
Cedar is what grows on rock. Leave a Rutherford County field alone and within a decade it's a cedar thicket: eastern red cedars packed so tight you can't walk through them, with hackberry, privet, honeysuckle and callery pear filling every gap. That's fine on a cedar glade you want to keep as a glade; it's a problem when you've bought two acres off Lascassas Pike or Rockvale Road for a house, a barn or a pasture. Clearing it with a bulldozer scrapes off the thin soil and leaves you bare rock; clearing it with a forestry mulcher chews the cedar and brush into a mulch layer that holds what soil there is.
We walk the lot first, flag the trees worth keeping — a big chinkapin oak, a shagbark hickory, a good cedar for a windbreak — and mulch everything else. Larger trees are cut and hauled. Stumps can be ground or, if the pad is going to be graded anyway, left for the excavator. We call 811 before the mulcher touches ground, and if the lot is inside the city we check whether a landscape plan or a tree-protection note on the site plan applies before we cut, because those are the trees Chapter 32.5 actually cares about.
What's included
Walk-through & keep-tree flagging
Good oaks, hickories and specimen cedars flagged before a machine arrives.
Forestry mulching
Cedar thickets, privet, honeysuckle and callery pear ground into mulch in place.
Selective clearing
House pads, driveways, pool and barn sites cleared with the tree line left intact.
Large-tree removal
Trees too big to mulch cut, bucked and hauled.
Stump grinding or grubbing
Ground for lawn, or left for the excavator if the pad is being graded.
Code & utility checks
811 locates, plus a check of any city site-plan tree requirements on lots inside Murfreesboro.
Lot and cedar clearing cost in Rutherford County
| Job | Typical price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Forestry mulching, cedar thicket | $1,800 – $3,200 per acre | Density dependent |
| Selective house-pad clearing (¼–½ acre) | $2,200 – $6,500 | Keep-trees protected |
| Fence-line clearing | $8 – $18 per linear foot | Hackberry, privet, cedar |
| Large tree removal within a clearing job | $400 – $1,800 each | Cut and hauled |
| Stump grinding on cleared lots | $2.50 – $4 per inch | Volume pricing |
| Pasture reclamation | $1,500 – $2,800 per acre | Cedar and brush mulched |
These are 2026 Rutherford County ranges so you can budget. Your written price is itemized — removal, rigging or crane, hauling, stump grinding, any paperwork — and good for 30 days.
Recent work
Questions we get about lot & cedar clearing
Mulching or bulldozing — which is better on a rocky lot?
Mulching, almost always. Rutherford County soil is thin over limestone, and a dozer scrapes it off along with the trees. A mulcher leaves the roots and the soil, puts a layer of ground cedar on top, and doesn't leave you with a burn pile or a truckload of stumps to haul.
Do I need a permit to clear my lot?
Outside the city limits, in our experience, no permit is involved for clearing your own land. Inside Murfreesboro, clearing tied to a building or site plan runs through the city's planning and landscape requirements, and trees on an approved plan can't be cut without the city's say-so. We check before we clear.
Will you keep the cedar glade?
If you want it, yes — and you should think about it. True cedar glades are rare, protected in places like Flat Rock and Sunnybell, and full of plants that grow nowhere else. A lot with a glade on it usually has a building site somewhere else on the parcel.
How fast does it come back?
Cedar and privet resprout from anything you leave. A mulched lot that's mowed twice a year stays open; one that's left alone is a thicket again in ten years.
Can you clear around an existing house?
Yes — back-line hackberry, privet and honeysuckle that's swallowed the yard is a regular half-day job for us.