Clearing work across Taylor
Taylor County's Gulf edge is almost entirely public. The Big Bend Wildlife Management Area runs five units along about 60 miles of shoreline, roughly 90,000 acres of salt marsh, tidal swamp and pine flatwoods, mostly in Taylor and Dixie counties. Private work happens behind that line. Inland, the county's timberland is pine flatwoods and sandier uplands, cut by hardwood drains, swamps and creek bottoms, and it carries north to the Madison County line.
More than 525,000 acres of Taylor County are forested, and one company holds a large share of them. Foley Timber and Land Company's roughly 380,000 acres here are the bulk of a 560,000-acre block spread across five North Central Florida counties, the largest contiguous private landholding in Florida, and the company has announced it is exploring a sale of nearly all of it. The mill at Foley alone harvests and replants about 13,000 acres a year, more than a million tons of pine.
Storms are the third fact of this county, and they are unusually concentrated. Three hurricanes made landfall here in thirteen months, all within about 23 miles of one another: Idalia at Keaton Beach in August 2023, Debby at Steinhatchee in August 2024, and Helene on September 26, 2024, a Category 4 with 140 mph winds that came ashore near Perry just east of the mouth of the Aucilla. Broken and downed timber from that run is still becoming clearing work.
The ground across Taylor County
Terrain and vegetation set the scope of a clearing job more than anything else, and they change across a county this size.
- Most of the county's pine was grown on raised beds, because the soils are too poorly drained to do it any other way. Old bed-and-furrow topography under the regrowth slows equipment and shapes how a re-clearing job gets priced.
- Hardwood drains, swamps and creek bottoms thread through the pine across the whole county. They hold water longest, and they are the usual reason an access route has to be moved before work starts.
- San Pedro Bay spreads across the northeast corner of the county and reaches into Madison. It is the headwater of the 36-mile blackwater Fenholloway River, and it is roughly half basin marsh, baygall and dome swamp, half working silviculture.
- Timber knocked down by Idalia and Helene did not fall neatly. Snapped tops, root-sprung leaners and stems hung up in the canopy behave differently from standing growth and are worth describing before anyone walks the tract.
- Cogongrass has reached nearly every county in Florida, and open, disturbed ground is where it takes. Mulching an infested patch without a treatment plan spreads it; UF/IFAS calls for fire, mechanical work and repeated chemical treatment together.
What people here get quoted
The requests that come up again and again on Taylor County ground.
- Site prep and replant clearing on cutover timber tracts, knocking down brush and volunteer hardwood between rotations on bedded pine ground.
- Storm cleanup on acreage: clearing snapped and leaning timber left by Idalia, Debby and Helene, and the regrowth that came up through it.
- Firebreaks, access roads and interior trails opened through large timber blocks where the nearest paved road may be miles from the work.
- Homesite and driveway clearing on rural parcels well outside Perry, where the building envelope gets opened and the surrounding pine stays.
- Boundary lines and fence rows reopened on large tracts, and lanes cut through flatwoods for hunting access without taking the canopy.
Permits and local rules
Perry is the only incorporated city in Taylor County, so nearly every rural parcel here answers to the county rather than a town. Ask Taylor County's building and planning offices in Perry about clearing, floodplain and development questions. Wet ground near San Pedro Bay, the Fenholloway or the coastal marsh may need a wetland review through the Florida DEP and your water management district. If the plan involves burning debris, ask the Florida Forest Service about authorization first.
Towns and communities
Where we cover in Taylor County.
Your property does not have to sit inside one of these — most of the ground we get requests for does not. Pick the closest on the form.
Services in Taylor
Every service, anywhere in the county.
Not sure which one your property needs? Describe what is standing on the ground and what you want to do with it afterward — the contractor will scope it correctly.
Questions
Clearing land in Taylor County.
Most of Taylor County is timberland. What size jobs make sense out here?
Acreage. This county runs on tracts, not quarter-acre lots, and Perry is about 52 miles and an hour from Tallahassee on US 27 and US 19. The work that pencils is measured in acres: cutover ground between rotations, storm-damaged stands, homesite envelopes on rural parcels, access roads and boundary lines. Taylor County also has a deep logging and land-clearing contractor base of its own. Put the acreage, the access and what is standing on the quote request, and the scope is written for contractors who cover this ground.
The old pine beds on our tract make rough going. Does that change the job?
It does. Bedding is standard practice in Taylor County because the soils are too poorly drained to grow pine flat, and the ridge-and-furrow shape stays in the ground long after the stand comes off. Equipment crosses beds slower than open ground, the furrows hold water, and a machine that is fine in March can be stuck in August. Say on the request whether the tract was bedded and roughly when it was last cut. It changes both the timing and the price.
A large block of timberland near us is for sale. Does that affect clearing work?
It can. Foley Timber and Land Company holds roughly 380,000 acres inside Taylor County, the largest contiguous private landholding in Florida, and has announced it is exploring a sale of nearly all its assets, about 876 square miles between Tallahassee and Gainesville. Nobody can say what a buyer would do with it. What is fair to say is that timberland is managed for growing and cutting pine, not for building on: interior access, boundary lines and homesite envelopes are the first things any other use needs, and all three are clearing work.