TREE SURGERY FAQs

Why might you want a tree removed?

Often trees are removed because they have simply outgrown their location. They may have become too large for their proximity to your house, or there is a concern that the root system could affect your home’s structure (especially on clay shrinkage soils). Or it may simply have grown to block off too much light that it spoils your enjoyment of your home and garden.

Why & How might you want your tree pruned?

Crown Reduction

Reducing the overall volume and visible size of a tree, whilst maintaining the natural balance and shape – ensuring that it still looks like a tree. It may be that you would like to keep your tree but you need more light in your garden, or you feel the tree is too large given it’s proximity to your property. Sometimes a tree with a potentially hazardous disease or unstable root may be spared removal by reducing it’s volume and thus greatly reducing it’s susceptibility to high winds or it’s collapse due to excessive branch weight.

Crown Thinning

This process leaves the overall size of the tree as it is, but removes selected branches within the crown. The branches that are removed are often those that are dead, rubbing, split or defective in some other way. Combined with increased airflow within the canopy this is a good way to maintain the health of your tree, while also increasing the light passing through to the ground below. Crown thinning reduces the ‘cluttered’ appearance of an overly thick canopy

Crown Lifting

To remove the lowest branches of a tree, providing increased clearance below. Can also be a good way to increase the light below garden trees. This is often carried out on roadside trees as there are statutory height clearance requirements that local councils/highway authorities can enforce.

Pollarding

A traditional method of tree management, this involves pruning the tree quite dramatically, often to only a few metres high, from which shoots will often re-grow with surprising vigour. It can be an effective way to greatly reduce the size of a tree while also leaving it in an easily maintained condition so long as this is done on a regular basis