Pruning and lopping
Tree pruning in Caboolture
Tree pruning and lopping across Caboolture and Moreton Bay, cut to Australian Standards.
Most pruning calls are about one of four things: the light, the roof, a limb that hangs over something expensive, or a tree that has simply got too big for where it is.
All of them are fixable without wrecking the tree, as long as the cuts go in the right places.
- Australian
- Standards pruning
- Fixed price
- before anything starts
- Clean-up
- included, not extra
The four jobs
Four jobs, and they are not the same job
People ring up and ask for a trim. What they usually need is one of these, and the difference decides both the price and what the tree looks like afterwards.
Crown thinning
Fixes: Wind, light and a dense canopy
Selected branches taken out through the canopy so light and air get through, without changing the shape or the height. This is the one that helps a lawn that will not grow and a tree that catches too much wind.
Crown lifting
Fixes: Clearance underneath
The lowest limbs removed to raise the skirt of the tree. Gets a mower, a car or a person underneath, and takes branches off a fence line or a driveway.
Crown reduction
Fixes: A tree that is too big
Height and spread brought in by cutting back to a suitable growth point, so the tree keeps its shape and can seal the wounds. This is what people usually mean when they say lopping, done the way it should be.
Dead-wooding
Fixes: The limb that drops without warning
Dead and hanging timber taken out of the canopy. It is the cheapest work we do and it removes the thing most likely to land on somebody.
Where the cut goes
The tree seals a good cut and rots around a bad one
A tree cannot heal a wound the way skin does. It walls the damage off and grows over it, and it can only do that from the collar of swollen tissue where a branch meets the trunk.
Cut at the collar
The collar is left intact and the tree grows a ring of callus in over the wound. Within a couple of seasons it is closed.
Cut flush with the trunk
The collar goes with the branch, so there is nothing left to grow from. The wound stays open and decay moves into the trunk itself.
Left as a stub
Too far out for the collar to reach. The stub dies back, rots, and takes the decay down into the trunk behind it.
It is the same three cuts on a jacaranda in Morayfield as on a mango in Burpengary. The species changes how fast it seals, not where the cut goes.
Not sure which one your tree needs?
Send a photo of the whole tree from a few metres back. That is usually enough to say whether it is a thin, a lift, a reduction or a dead-wood.
Lopping, topping and pruning
What people mean by lopping, and what we will not do
Lopping is an everyday word around here, and there is nothing wrong with using it. It just covers two very different jobs, and only one of them is any good for the tree.
When it gets done matters nearly as much as how. The right month to prune in South East Queensland goes through the window, and the species that ignore it.
Pruning
Cuts placed at a collar or back to a growth point that can take over. The tree keeps a shape, seals the wounds and carries on. Everything on this page is this.
Reduction, which most people call lopping
Height and spread brought in properly, cutting back to laterals rather than through bare wood. Ask for lopping and this is what you will get from us.
Topping
The canopy cut off at a height, straight through the trunk and main limbs. It throws up a mess of weak regrowth from below the cuts, the wounds do not seal, and in a few years the tree is both uglier and more dangerous than it was. We do not do it.
Want a straight answer on your tree?
Send a photo of the whole tree, not just the branch you are worried about. What it needs is usually obvious from the shape of the canopy.
Timing
When to get it done in south east Queensland
Dead-wooding and clearance work can be done any time. If a limb is dead or hanging over the driveway there is nothing to wait for.
Structural pruning and reductions are usually better done outside the wettest, hottest part of summer, when wounds sit open in humid weather for longer. Late winter into early spring is a comfortable window in this part of the state.
The exception is storm season. Taking weight and deadwood out of a big tree before the storms arrive is worth far more than tidying it up afterwards, and every November we wish more people had rung in August.
Pruning questions
Is lopping bad for a tree?
Lopping done as a proper crown reduction is fine. Lopping done as topping, where the canopy is cut off at a height straight through the limbs, is genuinely bad for it and creates a more dangerous tree within a few years. When you ask us for lopping you get the first one.
How much of a tree can be pruned at once?
Less than people expect. A tree makes its food in its leaves, so taking too much at once starves it and it responds with a flush of weak regrowth. On a healthy tree a moderate thin or reduction in one visit is normal, and anything more ambitious is better staged across seasons.
Will pruning make my tree grow back thicker?
Poor pruning will. Cuts through bare wood trigger a burst of shoots below them that are weakly attached and grow fast, which is why a topped tree needs doing again sooner. Cuts placed at a collar or a lateral do not do this.
Can you prune a tree over my roof or powerlines?
Over a roof, yes, and it is routine work. Anything inside the exclusion zone around service lines is a different licence, so tell us what is near it when you call and we will say straight away whether it is our job or the power authority's.
Do you take the branches away?
Yes. Everything is chipped on site and carted off, and the ground is raked. If you want the mulch for your garden beds say so and we will leave it in a heap where you want it.
My neighbour's tree hangs over my fence. What can I do?
Talk to the neighbour first, because the friendly version of this is much cheaper than the other one. If the tree is causing a real problem there is a process in Queensland for it, and the council or the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal can point you at it. We will quote the work either way once it is sorted.
Got a tree that needs sorting?
Send a photo or give us a ring. Quotes are free and there is no obligation to book anything.