Horse Country
Horse Country Clearing puts Davie property owners in touch with a local land clearing contractor who handles brazilian pepper removal on Davie and Broward County ground.
If one plant defines what's wrong with untended land in central Broward, it's Brazilian pepper. Schinus terebinthifolia came to Florida as a landscape plant, and birds have spent the decades since sowing its red berries along every canal, fence, and hedgerow since. Left alone it builds a sprawling multi-trunk dome up to 30 feet across that shades out everything beneath it, swallows fences whole, and drops enough seed to colonize the neighbors' side too.
Removal that lasts starts below the surface. Pepper cut at the trunk resprouts with enthusiasm, so the standard for permanent work is either full extraction — an excavator ripping the root ball out and shaking it clean — or a cut-stump herbicide treatment applied to the fresh cut within minutes. On Davie canal banks and property edges, extraction usually wins because it also removes the berry-laden crown before it can reseed the cleared ground.
The plant is more than a nuisance on paper: it's related to poison ivy, and its sap and even airborne particles from cutting bother plenty of people's skin and sinuses. That, plus the sheer weight of a mature thicket, is why pepper walls are machine work with an informed operator rather than a chainsaw weekend.
Know your enemy: what the research says
Brazilian peppertree is among the most widespread invasive plants in Florida — UF/IFAS maintains a dedicated Brazilian pepper topic hub and a practical control publication covering mechanical and herbicide options for exactly the situations homeowners face. The short version matches field experience in Davie: remove or treat the stump, expect bird-planted seedlings for a few seasons, and patrol the fence line annually.
Science is also fighting on your side. Researchers have released host-specific biological control insects — thrips that attack pepper's growing tips — documented in UF/IFAS's biological control overview. Biocontrol won't clear your canal bank, but it is slowly taking the edge off the regional seed pressure.
Canal banks: the pepper stronghold
Pepper loves the wet toe of a canal bank, and Davie is laced with canals that feed the regional drainage network managed in part by the South Florida Water Management District. Clearing here is done with the water in mind: silt fence or floating turbidity barrier before the first pull, root balls swung away from the water, and the bank regraded and grassed so the next storm doesn't carry loose sand into the channel.
Owners are often startled by what emerges — chain-link fences swallowed twenty years ago, old gates, whole survey monuments. Budget a little cleanup beyond the plants themselves; the thicket has been collecting things.
Further reading
Worth knowing first
Is Brazilian pepper illegal to have on my property?
Florida prohibits selling, propagating, or moving it, and many local codes require removing it during development — but simply having inherited pepper on your lot isn't a violation. Removing it is still the right call: every mature female tree seeds the whole neighborhood.
Why can't I just cut it down myself?
You can drop it, but the stump will be back with a dozen new stems by summer, and handling the sap gives many people a rash. Extraction or immediate stump treatment is what actually retires the plant.
What does pepper removal cost on a typical Davie lot?
A few isolated domes are a half-day machine visit; a continuous 200-foot canal-bank wall is a multi-day project with hauling. Access and disposal drive the spread, which is why quotes follow a site walk rather than a phone guess.
Will it come back after removal?
The removed plants won't, but bird-delivered seedlings will keep appearing for a few years anywhere near a seed source. A once-a-year pull-or-spray pass along fences and banks keeps a cleared line clear — it's minutes, not days.
What should replace the cleared thicket?
Grass on banks for stability, or natives — cocoplum, wax myrtle, sea grape — where you want the screen back without the invasion. Replanting suggestions are part of a good closing conversation on the job.