The Arbor Centre

Rob Bodenstaff founded The Arbor Centre in 1985, and forty years later it is still the family running it. A planned succession completed in July 2023 handed the day to day management to Alex Bodenstaff as Commercial Director and Sam Bodenstaff as Operations Director, with Rob staying on the board alongside them. We work out of Wattle Grove for developers, local government, commercial clients, property and strata managers, landscape architects and residential customers.

Tree roots lifting a footpath or cracking open a car park cost local governments money every single year, and the usual fix costs them a tree. So we built Fortress5, an integrated root barrier service that protects pavements, cycle paths, car parks, roads, hardstand and soft fall areas and the utility infrastructure buried under them, while the tree stays where it is and keeps its amenity value. Many local governments now specify Fortress5 as their preferred standard for managing tree roots in areas of high amenity use, which is a fair test of whether a thing works.

The work that happens before any machine arrives belongs to our consulting team: tree surveying and profiling, condition and risk assessments, design and planning input while a development is still on paper, retention strategies for the trees worth keeping, and straight advisory work when somebody has to make a call. Our arborists are qualified across Australian Qualification Framework levels 2 to 6, several hold AQF level 8 post graduate certification in arboriculture from Melbourne University, and we have AQF level 5 horticulturists on staff. The team is ISA certified, holds both QTRA and TRAQ tree risk qualifications, and carries high risk work licences for elevating work platforms, cranes and dogging along with powerline awareness training. We are a WALGA preferred supplier.

Moving a mature tree is the other thing we are known for. We plan and facilitate the relocation, source and prepare the receiving site, sort the logistics including traffic management for oversize loads, manage the canopy and the root ball through the lift and the transport, and look after the tree once it is in the ground; if the destination site is not ready, we can hold the tree in temporary storage until it is. Our own tree farm grows stock to order, and the supply and plant service that follows it, with delivery, planting and aftercare attached, is the only warranty backed integrated version of that in Western Australia. A watering and aftercare programme carries new planting through its first summers, which is where young trees are usually lost, and our green surgery crews handle the pruning and maintenance on everything from a private garden to a civic avenue.

Georgiou, Frasers Property, AECOM, Downer and the Town of Port Hedland are among the organisations we work for across Perth and Western Australia, and our civic tree programmes help councils get to their canopy coverage targets. If it is a tree at home you are unsure about, the quote is free and an arborist comes out to look at it in person. Ring the sales team on 08 9359 9300 or fill in the enquiry form and someone will come back to you.