Axe Tree Services

Axe Tree Services works out of Pakenham and covers Melbourne's east and south east, with around eight years behind them. The crew are qualified arborists working to the Australian Standards, and the business carries $20 million in public liability cover, which sits at the higher end for a tree outfit and counts for a lot on commercial sites. The phone runs Monday to Saturday, 8am to 8pm, with a 24/7 line for emergencies.

Tree removal, cutting and lopping is the main work, from a single backyard tree through to clearing a whole site. Access is usually what decides the price, and the difficult ones, trees hanging over a roof or jammed hard against a boundary, are what the rigging gear is there for. Palm tree removal gets its own listing, fair enough given palms want a different approach to a eucalypt and plenty of crews would rather not touch them. Stump removal and grinding follows on, taking the stump out properly instead of leaving a hump in the lawn.

Tree trimming and pruning covers deadwooding, thinning and clearance work. Hedging and trimming keeps formal hedges and screening in line. Mulching puts the arisings back to use rather than carting them off. There is a tree removal calculator on the site if you want a rough figure before you ring, and their stated line on quoting is a detailed price upfront with nothing hidden in it.

A decent share of the work is not residential. Councils, government departments, schools and universities, and commercial and business sites each have their own service line, which means the surrounding requirements, insurance, traffic management, scheduling around a site that is still operating, are familiar rather than an occasional favour. Sustainability has its own page too, focused on where the timber and green waste ends up after it leaves.

The service map is drawn by council area rather than by suburb: Cardinia and Casey around the home base, then Knox, Monash, Whitehorse, Maroondah, Manningham and the Yarra Ranges through the east, and Boroondara, Stonnington, Glen Eira, Bayside, Kingston, Greater Dandenong and Yarra heading in toward the city and down along the bay.