The Tree Company

The Tree Company has been working on Melbourne trees for more than 25 years and has grown into one of the larger arboricultural outfits in the city, with around 85 staff and four depots at Surrey Hills, Preston and Flemington. The head office sits on Canterbury Road in Surrey Hills. Size aside, the stated approach is unfussy, and comes down to showing up, doing the job right and treating every tree and every client with the care they deserve.

The service list runs from tree removal and stump removal and grinding through tree pruning to the specialist end. Cable and dynamic bracing holds together trees with structural defects. Mature tree and palm transplanting lifts and relocates established trees rather than losing them to a redevelopment. Tree health care covers diagnosis and treatment, and tree planting and maintenance takes on the establishment work afterwards.

Habitat creation and nest box installation is a proper part of the offer rather than a line on a page, which matters when a hollow-bearing tree has to be reduced instead of felled. The fleet backs up the range of work: fourteen truck and chipper combinations, six elevated work platforms, six stump grinders, four tip trucks, two excavators, two Kanga loaders, two dedicated tree planting and watering trucks, plus climbing and rigging gear and plant health care equipment. Many of the chainsaws are now battery-powered.

Safety is where the company has put its paperwork. It holds ISO 45001 for occupational health and safety, ISO 9001 for quality management and ISO 14001 for environmental management, all certified through QAS International, and carries $20 million in public liability insurance. It also runs its own in-house aerial rescue training, covering gear checks, SRT and base anchor rescues, double rope and pick rescues, EWP emergency descent device evacuation and ground control rescue. Not many tree companies train their climbers to get each other out of a canopy.

Work is split between residential and commercial tree services, the latter taking in schools and universities, municipal and government contracts. The site also keeps a plain-language guide to council permits and Victorian tree law, which is the first thing most homeowners need to read before anything gets cut. Crews cover Melbourne and the surrounding areas from the depots across the city.