Tree Lopping in Eaglehawk Without Ruining the Tree

Stand on the footpath in one of the old streets of Eaglehawk two summers after the work is done and you can tell straight away which trees were lopped and which were reduced. The lopped ones carry a crop of whippy shoots sprouting from the ends of thick, flat-cut stubs, thicker on top than the crown ever was. The reduced ones simply look like slightly smaller versions of themselves. This page is about that difference, and why we only do the second one.

Two crowns, two years on

Why topping goes so badly in Eaglehawk gardens

The three trees most often pointed at when someone asks about lopping in Eaglehawk are elms, radiata pines and eucalypts, and each fails in its own way when topped. Elms throw a thicket of watershoots that need cutting back every couple of years and are poorly attached where they meet the old stub. Pines cannot regrow from bare wood at all, so a topped radiata is simply a dead pole with a few live side branches. Gums push out epicormic growth from under the bark that grows fast, sits on decaying stubs and is the first thing to come down in a north-westerly.

Crown reduction to AS 4373, the Australian standard for pruning amenity trees, avoids all of that by cutting back to a lateral branch of decent size that can take over the flow of sap. The tree loses height and spread, sometimes a fair amount, but keeps a working structure and a shape that suits the street.

What a reduction job in Eaglehawk involves

The typical call is a mature elm or a big gum leaning over the roof of a cottage, with the gutters full every autumn and a limb or two a bit too close to the bedroom. We start by agreeing what the finished crown should look like, not a height in metres but a picture: clear of the roof by this much, off the powerline, lighter on the house side.

The climber works on rope and harness, never spikes on a tree that is being kept, and makes each cut at a fork so that a side branch at least a third the diameter of the piece removed is left to carry on. Taking a fifth to a quarter of the crown is normal; more than that in one go is where a reduction turns back into lopping, and if a tree needs that much off we will talk honestly about whether it should stay at all. Everything comes down on lines onto the small yards, is dragged to the front and chipped at the kerb. A single mature elm is generally a morning; a large gum with a lot of weight over the house is a full day.

A reduction pairs well with other work in the same climb. Deadwooding, thinning and clearance over the roof are covered on our tree pruning in Eaglehawk page, and where a tree is past saving there is tree removal in Eaglehawk.

Eaglehawk conditions that shape the cut

• Old elms. The avenues off Don Street and High Street date from the borough days, and the same elms turn up in private gardens behind the cottages. Winter, while they are bare, is the time to reduce them; the structure is easy to read and the tree loses least.
• Powerlines on narrow streets. Most of the township's streets carry overhead lines, and many private trees grow into them. Distribution lines are the network contractors' job; we handle the tree on the private side and the service line to the house with the required clearances.
• The heritage overlay. Around Brassey Square and the older streets a significant tree can be covered by the overlay. Reduction rarely needs a permit; removal often does. We check before quoting either way.
• The Whipstick edge. Blocks along the northern side back onto the box-ironbark of the Greater Bendigo National Park. Reducing a big ironbark or grey box over the house here is as much about ember exposure and limb drop as about shade.
• Wind and dry ground. The rises above the lakes are exposed, and gums on the shallow mullock soils drop limbs in hot, still weather as well as in storms. Reduction takes weight off the ends, which is where they fail.

The same approach applies to tree lopping in California Gully, reduction work in Huntly and tree lopping in Bendigo. The main tree lopping service page goes further into the standard, and the Eaglehawk page lists all our services in the suburb.

Lopping and reduction questions from Eaglehawk