Northern Tree Care

When I was asked for an opinion on a stand of ailing pandanus in Byron Bay, the real question was not the trees but the Jamella australiae leaf hopper working through their growing heads, a sap sucker that will finish off Pandanus tectorius if nobody names it early enough. Naming that sort of thing is the job. I am Peter Gray, and Northern Tree Care is the arboricultural consultancy I own and operate out of Ballina in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales.

My interest in trees started at eight, working in the family stone fruit orchard, and it turned into a career that has run since the mid-1990s, twenty years of it in arboriculture. I hold a Diploma of Arboriculture in Horticulture, a Diploma of Arboriculture at AQF Level 5 and a Graduate Certificate in Arboriculture at AQF Level 8. I sit as a director on the Board of Arboriculture Australia, and I have taught a great many students at Wollongbar TAFE. Every project this consultancy takes on is approved, directed and guided by me.

The reports go to local government authorities, corporations, industry bodies, private landholders and developers, and they get asked for on town planning and development applications, tree risk, disease diagnosis and treatment, tree health and management, dispute mediation and Land and Environment Court matters. A typical one sets out the aims, a detailed description of the trees and of the site, the health and management position, the risk assessment and the recommendations, and those recommendations run from retention and protection through treatment, remedial pruning and hazard reduction all the way to removal. Arborist tree surveys do the same work across a whole population, identifying, counting and mapping the trees and describing their condition where that is wanted.

Owners and managers of trees carry a duty of care to see that the risk attached to them is managed properly, and that weighs heaviest in public areas, schools and other high use places. Judging that risk is well beyond what anyone can do from the footpath, so I have trained extensively in both QTRA's Quantified Tree Risk Assessment and VALID Tree Risk-Benefit Management, and I assess to each of them. Root mapping comes in where the question is what the roots have actually done under the ground, and whether cutting them or breaking them changes what the tree can survive.

Where a tree is declining and not yet dangerous, tree health and management starts with working out why, and pest and disease identification and diagnosis separates the treatable problems from the ones that end a tree. Brown root rot, Phellinus noxius, is one I have written about, because it has become a severe problem for privately and publicly owned trees alike. Once a job is approved and under way, project arborist management keeps the works in line with what the consent actually requires. Not every argument needs a hearing either, so I take on dispute mediation between neighbours, owners and authorities, and expert witness work where a matter does proceed.

Alongside the client work I write on trees, insects, pests and soils, and run ArborMentor, a library of recorded mentoring sessions for other arborists working through the same problems. The office runs Monday to Friday, nine to five. Ring or email with the property address and what has been asked of you, and you will be talking to me directly about which assessment fits the situation and what it takes to do it properly.