Tree Pruning

Dead branches up high

Grey, bare limbs with no leaf on them, usually in the top third of the tree. Gums do this constantly. The tree drops what it can't feed, then holds onto the dead wood until a gust or a cockatoo lets go of it. Deadwood over a driveway, a pool or a trampoline is easily our most common call.

A limb sitting on the roof

Leaves in the gutters, branches rubbing tiles, ridge caps working loose, and a handy bridge for possums and rats. Lifting those limbs clear, which we call crown lifting, sorts the rubbing and most of the leaf litter in one visit.

Cracked or hanging limbs after a storm

A limb half torn out and hanging by a strip of bark is a today problem, not a next-season problem. Same with a fork that's split open. Wind gets under it again and it finishes the job at three in the morning.

A canopy the wind can't get through

A tree carrying a solid wall of leaf behaves like a sail. Thinning takes selected inner branches out so air moves through the crown instead of shoving the whole thing sideways. Done properly you can barely pick it from the footpath, which is rather the point.

Branches over the fence, the shed or the pool

The neighbour conversation. You can generally prune to the boundary, and there are rules around how, so we'll walk the fence line with you before anything comes off. Same with limbs over a pool, where the leaf drop costs you all summer in filter cleaning.

A tree that's been topped before

Someone cut it flat years ago and now there are twenty or thirty shoots off the old wound. That regrowth is only attached at the surface, so it snaps easily in wind. We can bring it back to better-placed growth over a couple of visits, but you can't undo a topping in one go.

Why Brisbane in particular

It comes down to what's planted and what the ground does. Gums, figs, poincianas, jacarandas, camphor laurels and old mango trees make up most of our pruning work. The clay through Mount Gravatt East and Tarragindi sets hard in a dry winter, then holds water after a wet fortnight, so roots stay shallow and trees lean toward the light. Wet summers push soft, heavy growth that's poorly attached. Closer to the bay, around Capalaba and Alexandra Hills, canopies cop steadier wind with a bit of salt in it, so one side thins out and the weight ends up on the other. Older suburbs also carry decades of pruning history, some of it good, some of it done off a ladder with a hire saw on a Sunday.

One thing we'll always be straight about. If a branch is into the powerlines, that cut isn't ours. Conductors are Energex's job or an accredited line clearer's. We'll tell you which call to make.

The phone call

Troy usually answers. He'll ask what the tree is, roughly how tall, what sits under it, and whether we can get a chipper down the side. If you know the width of the side gate, that helps. Photos are handy too. We still come and look before we quote, because pruning quoted off a photo is how people end up arguing later.

The quote

We walk the whole tree, usually from a few angles, and check the things you can't see from the back deck: the union up high, the old wound on the trunk, the lean, what's hanging over the fence. Then you get a written scope. Which limbs come off, what stays, and whether the chip stays for your garden beds or goes with us. You get the price in writing before any work starts.

Permits and protected trees

Some trees are protected by council, and some blocks have vegetation conditions sitting on the title. We'll tell you what we reckon applies before we start. If it needs a permit, nothing gets cut until that's sorted. We check for wildlife before the job starts.

Booking in

We'll ring the day before to confirm, and again if we're running early.

Setting up

We knock first. Then we walk the yard with you, move the outdoor setting and the cars, and put bog mats or boards down if machinery is going over turf. If there's grinding in the job we locate underground services before anything digs in. Dogs are best inside while the chipper's running.

The cutting

One of the boys climbs, or we bring in the EWP, an elevated work platform, the thing most people call a cherry picker. Our spider unit gets through gates and up steps where a truck can't follow. Every cut goes back to a branch collar or to a lateral big enough to take over, so the wound seals and the tree keeps growing. No flush cuts, no stubs, no spikes in a tree we're keeping. As a rule we keep removal under about a quarter of the live canopy in one visit. Cut harder than that and you get a stressed tree throwing weak shoots, which is next year's problem rather than a fix.

Lowering the limbs

Anything over a pool, a shed, a fence or a glasshouse gets rigged and lowered on ropes instead of dropped. It's slower. It's also why nobody's tiles get broken.

Clean up

Branches go through the chipper, the yard gets raked, paths get blown off, and the lot leaves with us. If the chip is useful to you, say the word and we'll leave a pile by the beds. Clean up is the thing customers mention most in our reviews, so we're a bit precious about it.

The walk around

Before we leave, we walk it with you and show you what came off and why. If we've spotted something worth watching, like a fork we'd want another look at in a couple of years, you hear about it then. Not by surprise later.

Climbing first. Our arborists work on rope and friction systems, with rigging ropes, slings and a lowering device for the heavy limbs. Top-handle saws up in the tree, bigger saws on the ground, pole saws for the reaches that don't justify a climb. Height gear gets checked before it goes on and replaced when it's due. Unglamorous, and not negotiable.

For the tall and awkward work we bring the EWP. An elevated work platform lets us get above a canopy and work down through it without loading the tree with a climber's weight, which matters on a tree that's already suspect. The spider EWP tracks through a side gate and across lawn on mats, so we can reach a back corner without a crane parked out on the street.

On the ground it's a chipper and a tipper, tarps over garden beds, and traffic gear when the work sits above a footpath. Everyone wears a helmet with eye and ear protection, and cut-resistant legwear on the saws.

On standards, we prune to AS 4373, the Australian standard for pruning amenity trees. In plain English, that document sets out where a cut belongs and what each type of prune is properly called, so crown thinning means the same thing to us as it does to a consulting arborist or a council officer. Work at height and saw work sit under the Queensland work health and safety rules. Services get located before ground machinery goes in. If you want our paperwork before we start, ask and we'll send it through.

Our hours are 7 days, 6am to 6pm, and Troy answers the phone through those hours. Outside those hours, call any time for emergencies, 24 hours a day. Ring 0400 721 715 and you get a person, not a call centre.

After a big blow the phone goes flat out, so we sort the calls by risk. A limb hanging over a child's bedroom or a driveway jumps ahead of a branch lying on the lawn. If a tree is on the house or across the road, tell us on the first call, because it changes the gear we load.

Sometimes the right answer is a make-safe first. We take the hanger out, cut back whatever is under load, and come back for the proper prune and clean up once the street settles. Insurance jobs run the same way, except we photograph the damage before we touch it so you've got something to send the assessor.

Two things to leave well alone. Anything touching powerlines: ring Energex on 13 19 62 and stay back. Anything actively falling, or a tree over a person: 000 first, us second. And please don't climb on the roof with a pole saw to have a look yourself. We've been called in to fix the result of that more than once.

The proof is in our Google reviews. They're five-star, built up since 2015, and the two things they keep repeating are the clean up and the straight quote.

Beyond that:

• Family run since 2015. Troy still quotes the jobs and still runs a grinder. The boys climb.
• Not a mowing crew with a hire saw in the ute.
• We prune to AS 4373, and we'll explain each cut in plain English before we make it.
• We'll tell you when a tree doesn't need the work. A prune instead of a removal is the smaller job for us, and we'd rather keep the tree in the ground.
• Stumps are the specialty, so if a tree does come out, the Wishart crew finishing it off is the same crew. One number, one yard to tidy, one invoice.
• Careful in a yard. Bog mats on turf, services located, wildlife checked, gates shut behind us.
• We work from our depot at Wishart and cover most of Brisbane and out to the bayside suburbs.

Got a limb over the house, a canopy full of deadwood, or a tree you're just not sure about? Ring Troy on 0400 721 715, or text your photos to the same number, and we'll come and have a look.