Len McKeown Tree Services

Len McKeown Tree Services has been working across Melbourne for more than 25 years, and it is still a family business. Len runs the tree side and his wife Glenda handles the scheduling and the office, which is why bookings tend to get sorted on the phone rather than through a form and a wait. The kit is what you would expect from a crew doing volume: Stihl saws through the day, and a Vermeer BC1500 chipper running a 125 horsepower John Deere diesel that swallows material up to 15 inches across.

Tree removal is the core of it, including large removals and the difficult access jobs where the tree has to come out over a fence, a pool, or a neighbour's roof with nowhere to put a crane. Tree lopping and tree pruning deal with the overgrown ones, particularly limbs creeping toward power lines. Palm tree trimming covers the fronds and seed heads that become a hazard once they let go. Stump grinding and removal takes out what is left behind.

They call themselves local leaders in emergency tree services, and the storm work backs that up: branches down across power lines, trees through fences and roofs after a big blow. Insurance work and claims is the related line, with quotations written up promptly for storm damage claims, which saves a homeowner chasing paperwork while there is still a gum lying across the driveway.

The advisory side is broader than most tree crews carry. Arborist reports are prepared for council permit applications and development sites, and they will help with the tree removal permits themselves, which across Melbourne councils is often the slowest part of the job. Tree health care and advice covers trees in decline, and elm leaf beetle control is offered separately, which is a real issue in the older eastern suburbs where the elm avenues are. Woodchipping and mulch sales round it out, delivered.

The area list runs to hundreds of suburbs across greater Melbourne: through the inner east at Balwyn, Camberwell and Mount Waverley, out to Ringwood, Croydon, Lilydale and Mooroolbark, up into the hills at Belgrave, Olinda and Monbulk, and across to Doncaster East, Ivanhoe and Bentleigh. The Yarra Valley is on the list as well, out through Healesville and Warburton.