Heartwood Tree Solutions

Shane Clark finished his AQF3 in Arboriculture in 2008 and his Diploma of Horticulture in Arboriculture in 2012, and he picked the trade up before either of those working alongside arborists who had been at it a long time. Heartwood Tree Solutions is his, a family owned business, and he is still the one who comes out to look at your tree and the one supervising the crew that does the work. Nothing happens on a Heartwood job without a trained arborist over it, which is the whole point of hiring one.

From Arana Hills the work runs across Brisbane, Ipswich and everything around them. We are a qualified member of the Queensland Arboricultural Association and a member of Arboriculture Australia, we hold combined general and products liability cover to twenty million dollars, and we are registered with WorkCover Queensland. Builders and body corporates who want the certificates sighted before anyone sets foot on the site only have to ask, and they come through with the quote.

The pruning at the University of Queensland's St Lucia campus was done from an elevated work platform, and that machine changes what is possible on a lot of jobs. Reaching a canopy from a basket is gentler on the tree than climbing it and puts the arborist where he can see exactly what he is cutting. Where a platform will not fit, a tree comes apart by manual dismantling; where there is room and weight to shift, a crane does it; on an open block it can simply be clear felled. Which of those you get depends on the condition of the tree, what is sitting underneath it and what the site will allow, and that assessment happens before anyone starts a saw.

Before any of it, though, there is the question of whether you are allowed to touch the tree at all. The Natural Assets Local Law 2003 and council Vegetation Protection Orders both bite around here, and every council nearby handles pruning and removal on its own terms. We write the arbor reports that settle that, and a report has to come from someone qualified to at least AQF Level 5, which is what the Diploma covers. If one is needed before work can start, you will hear it from us at the quote, not after the crew has arrived.

Trees that get inspected and managed once a year come through high winds in far better shape than trees nobody has looked at. Deadwood out, hanging branches down, structure corrected: that is what tree pruning and tree lopping are doing when we recommend them ahead of the season, and it makes a significant difference to how likely a limb is to fail. Storm damage work is there for when the weather beats you to it. An untreated stump can re establish as a multi trunked tree, so our stump grinding lifts the surface roots as well, and the cheapest time to book it is the same visit as the removal.

Every tree we take down is recycled, all of it, into garden mulch that goes back to the customer free, milled timber and firewood. We also sponsor Rainforest Rescue's work on Lot 46, Cape Tribulation Road, in the heart of the Daintree lowland rainforest, land being bought back and held as a nature conservation reserve in perpetuity while 75 per cent of Australia's rainforest is already gone. Ring Shane on 0461 318 352 for a quote, and when he comes out you will get the qualifications and the insurance certificates alongside the price, which is what you should be asking of anybody you let near a tree.