Brush Hogging & Lawn Mowing in Thonotosassa, FL

Thonotosassa is an unincorporated community in northeast Hillsborough County, with I-75 to the west, I-4 to the south and the Hillsborough River to the north. The 2020 census counted 15,238 people there, up 17% since 2010. Just under a quarter of them lived outside the Tampa urban area.

Much of it is still farm country on paper. About 70% of the land is zoned agricultural. Roughly 90% of the community sits outside the Urban Service Area, where the county plans public water and sewer lines. County parcel records count about 350 farm parcels in and around the community, most of them grazing land. You’ll find plenty along McIntosh, Kingsway, Muck Pond, Taylor and Knights Griffin Roads.

Home lots run big, too. Nearly half the home, farm and vacant parcels with a Thonotosassa address are an acre or larger, and about one in ten covers five acres or more. Newer subdivisions follow suit: Graceland Estates and most of Heritage Estates were platted in lots of about an acre.

Stonelake Ranch reaches the shore of Lake Thonotosassa, which SWFWMD calls the county’s largest natural lake. County records show 156 lots there, from an acre and a half to just over 18 acres. Lots that size often need two kinds of work: a lawn mowed around the house, and open ground beyond it that’s cut by the acre.

The high ground is deep sand. Candler fine sand covers about 31% of the area and Lake fine sand another 14%, and both drain fast. NRCS lists turkey oak, bluejack oak, longleaf pine and sand pine as Candler’s native cover, and notes that many areas of it are used for pasture.

Low ground is another matter. Close to a third of the soil is poorly or very poorly drained, and about 22% of the land falls in a FEMA flood zone. On flatwoods soils like Myakka, the native cover is pine over saw palmetto. Palmetto that’s taken over a field is dense-brush work, the top brush hogging tier. Before the dry season, our guide to how far out to mow around a home follows the Florida Forest Service’s zones.

Summer brings most of the rain. The NOAA weather station at Hillsborough River State Park averages 52.97 inches a year over 1991–2020, and 30.81 inches of it falls from June through September. November’s the driest month, at 1.71 inches.

In its October 10, 2024 report, that station logged 12.80 inches from Hurricane Milton. A day later, the Hillsborough River at Morris Bridge hit its highest flow since USGS records began in 1973. SWFWMD reported the Flint Creek control structure on Lake Thonotosassa completely under water.

UF/IFAS calls bahiagrass Florida’s most common warm-season perennial grass, and says it holds on in poor, sandy soil better than other grasses do. It puts up seed heads through the long days of summer, in a rainy season NWS Tampa Bay dates from about May 25 to October 10.

Bahiagrass pasture that’s been kept under about a foot takes field mowing. Once it’s past a foot or brush has moved in, it takes a brush hog, priced per acre by what’s growing.

Subdivision lawns can be mowed weekly or every two weeks, in step with UF/IFAS advice to cut a bahiagrass lawn every 7 to 14 days during active growth. Regular visits start at $45 up to a quarter acre, $60 to half an acre and $85 to a full acre. The first cut on a lawn that’s been let go starts at $75 at the smallest size, or $120 if the grass is past a foot. Bigger lawns are priced once we’ve seen them.