Let's Talk About Trees

Before I started Let's Talk About Trees in 2011, I spent over a decade in local government managing parks and arboriculture, including senior management in the City of Greater Geelong Parks Department, and another decade in the private sector as General Manager of what was then one of Victoria's largest tree maintenance companies. I held that role at Bellarine Tree Services for eight years, then moved into organisational implementation and development and built the systems that took the company through full independent ISO audit in 2010. My qualification is a Diploma of Applied Science in Horticulture (Arboriculture), and I still teach through the TAFE and university system and through registered training organisations.

Arboricultural reports run in levels, so you pay for the scope you actually need. A Letter of Identification is the smallest of them, a formal identification of a tree or plant on your property, which local government often wants before it will issue a removal permission. From there the levels scale with the number of trees: one tree assessed for health and retention value, two to four where a council planning matter is involved, four to fifteen for development work, which references AS4970-2009 Protection of Trees on Development Sites. Levels 4 and 5 are built for larger areas and the ongoing audit of parks and reserves.

The people who ring me are rarely after the same thing. A homeowner wants one tree looked at. Caravan parks, school committees, camp grounds and cemetery trusts want asset management and risk assessment across a whole site of public recreation or amenity land. Builders, draftspeople, architects, developers and engineers want reports for development sites, and some of them want me back as the site arborist for the life of the contract, working through the four stages AS4970 sets out: planning, pre-construction, construction and post-construction.

Consultation covers the ground either side of a report, so that takes in management plans, retention and risk, valuation, root investigation and root damage, tree species selection, specifications, site analysis, stock assessments, strategic policy, and forensic investigation where nuisance or negligence is in question. That advice factors in ecology rather than treating it as a separate exercise. I also deliver arboricultural training, from plant health, pruning and tree management through to report writing, business establishment and staff development, and I teach Arboriculture and Horticulture certificates 1 to 5, holding a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment alongside the diploma.

The base is Drysdale, on the Bellarine Peninsula, and I work across Geelong, the Surf Coast, Ballarat and country Victoria, with the occasional project interstate. Sites have taken me in for VicRoads, Parks Victoria, the City of Greater Geelong, the Borough of Queenscliff, Wyndham City Council, ACT Parks and Places, the Department of Defence, Deakin University, Melbourne Water, Barwon Water and Wannon Water, alongside builders, golf courses, Victorian cemetery trusts and a long list of private clients.

This is advisory work, not tree work. I don't run a crew and I don't take trees down, so the advice you get isn't attached to selling you a removal. Let's Talk About Trees is a sole trader carrying five million dollars of professional indemnity cover and twenty million of public liability, and if you want a referee before you commit to anything I'm glad to give you one. Ring 0468 874 233 or send me an email and we'll work out which report you actually need.