Steve Slaughter Tree Services

Adelaide, the Adelaide Hills and the Barossa Valley throw their own particular set of problems at a garden: elm leaf beetle, cypress bark weevil, pear and cherry slug, scale and aphid, and the various other leaf damaging pests that turn up around here. Steve Slaughter Tree Services was founded in 1983, and Steve has spent more than 40 years working in and around Adelaide on precisely that. Steve is a qualified arborist with a Diploma of Arboriculture and a genuine love for trees and gardens, and he still manages the business day to day himself.

Our specialty is tree pest and disease management. We have put elm leaf beetle treatments through trees across the region, worked on a pencil pine attacked by cypress weevil, and assessed leaf damage on a weeping cherry, which gives you a fair idea of the range. Elm leaf beetle, cypress bark weevil, pear and cherry slug, scale and aphid and the other leaf damaging pests common in this part of South Australia are all ones we treat.

Not every job ends in a treatment. Some of it is simply looking properly and telling you what you actually have: assessing the viability of a termite infested eucalypt, inspecting a Garrya Elliptica, carrying out a tree inspection and putting the findings into a written report. Arborist assessments and advice cover the health of a tree and what ought to be done about it, up to and including whether pruning or removal is the right call. All work meets the standards this specialised end of the trade demands, and Steve takes particular care that every aspect of a job is dealt with the first time.

Councils and property management businesses have kept Steve on as a preferred supplier across those four decades, and private clients have come back to him repeatedly over many years. That is the part of the record we would rather be judged on than any adjective. Every job starts with Steve making sure he understands what is actually required, because that is what stops the wrong work being done well. Big job or small, it then gets done safely, on time, at the right price and with minimal disturbance to the surroundings, and in a world of depersonalisation you are dealing with Steve rather than a call centre. Quotes are free and carry no obligation, so ring him direct to talk through what your trees need.