Tree Pruning Kangaroo Flat by TB'S Trees of Bendigo

TB'S Trees arborist on ropes inside a eucalypt canopy, the climbing approach we use for tree pruning in Kangaroo Flat backyards

Ask any arborist what makes a pruning job easy or hard and they will talk about access before they talk about the tree. Kangaroo Flat is a good example. The suburb grew in distinct waves, and each wave left a different kind of block behind, so tree pruning in Kangaroo Flat is really three or four different jobs depending on which street you live on.

Quick answer

TB'S Trees prunes trees in Kangaroo Flat (3555) by rope and by elevated work platform, covering deadwooding, thinning, clearance from roofs and powerlines, formative work on young trees and winter fruit-tree pruning. Ring 0498 609 887 for a free quote.

Getting to the tree: access on Kangaroo Flat blocks

The post-war streets. Between High Street and the railway, and out along Lockwood Road, the houses from the fifties to the eighties sit on generous blocks with a driveway down one side and often a gate at the end of it. If the gate is wide enough the elevated work platform drives straight to the back yard, which makes deadwooding a tall gum quick and safe. Where it cannot fit, our climbers go up on ropes and the platform stays on the nature strip.

The estates. The newer subdivisions towards Big Hill and the Lockwood side have narrow side setbacks, rendered fences and driveways that are not to be marked. Trees there are younger and smaller, so the work is done from a ladder or a short climb, with drop sheets down and brush carried out by hand. Chipping happens on the road.

The commercial strip. High Street is also the Calder Highway, so pruning street-facing trees at shops and around Lansell Square means traffic control and early starts. We schedule those jobs for the quiet hours and have the footpath open again before opening time.

The reserve edge. Blocks that run into the bush around Crusoe Reservoir and No. 7 Park often have big remnant trees at the back fence with no vehicle access at all. Those are pure climbing jobs, and the brush is either chipped through the house block or, where the owner prefers, cut and left as habitat and firewood.

The trees we prune most around Kangaroo Flat

The original vegetation here was box-ironbark forest, and a surprising number of yards still hold a remnant yellow gum or grey box, with red ironbark on the stonier rises. These trees are worth keeping. They mostly need deadwooding, removing the dead limbs eucalypts shed naturally before they land on a roof, and occasionally crown thinning to let wind through a dense head.

The post-war gardens added the fast growers: spotted gum, sugar gum and lemon-scented gum, plus pin oaks, liquidambars, claret ash and silver birch for autumn colour. Most of the pruning on these is clearance, lifting the canopy off the roof and the driveway and shortening the odd limb over the neighbour's yard. Under the street powerlines the same trees need regular clearance pruning by people trained for work near live conductors.

The estates come with ornamental pears, crepe myrtles, Chinese elms and native street trees planted in the last ten or fifteen years. This is where formative pruning earns its keep: a young tree shaped now, with crossing branches removed and a single leader encouraged, will not need expensive work at thirty.

And then there are the fruit trees. Kangaroo Flat's older backyards are full of apricots, plums, apples, figs and lemons, and a winter prune of the deciduous ones keeps the fruit within reach and the tree open enough to stay healthy. We prune fruit trees for structure and cropping, not just to make them smaller.

Local factors that change how we prune here

The soil on the old diggings is shallow and drains fast, so trees on the rises are under real stress by late summer and should not be pruned hard in the heat. The creek flats are the opposite; soft ground in winter means the platform goes onto mats or stays on the road. The Bushfire Management Overlay on the reserve side encourages lifting lower limbs and separating canopies from the house, and the council may have a view on heavier work under its vegetation overlays, which we check first. Storm damage after a hot northerly is common enough that a good deal of our pruning here is really tidying torn limbs and making the tree sound again.

How a Kangaroo Flat pruning job runs, step by step

You call, we come and look. Tom or one of the team walks the block with you, checks the access and the overlays and explains what the tree actually needs. The quote is written up on the spot.
We pick the method. Elevated work platform if it fits and the ground will carry it, ropes if not. Powerline work is flagged and scheduled with the right crew.
Set-up on the day. Drop zones are marked, sheets go down on paving and beds, and the neighbours are told if we will be working over the fence line.
The pruning itself. Every cut is made to AS 4373, back to the branch collar or a suitable lateral, with deadwood first, then structural work, then clearance. Nothing is stubbed and nothing is torn.
Clean-up and handover. Brush is chipped, the mulch stays or goes as you prefer, and we walk you round the tree so you can see what was done and why.

If a tree has grown well beyond what pruning can manage, the answer might be a crown reduction, described on our tree lopping in Kangaroo Flat page, or in some cases tree removal in Kangaroo Flat. Hedges get their own treatment on the hedge trimming in Kangaroo Flat page. The rest of what we do locally is on the Kangaroo Flat suburb page, and our general approach on the Bendigo tree pruning service page. The same crew prunes across the boundary in Golden Square, through central Bendigo and out at Maiden Gully.

Kangaroo Flat tree pruning questions

Yes. Most of the older blocks around High Street have this problem and it is why our crew climbs. A climber on ropes can reach every part of a gum that a platform can, the brush comes out through the gate by hand, and the chipper stays in the street. It adds a little time but no compromise on the work.

Almost always pruned. Yellow gums shed dead limbs as a matter of course, and a thorough deadwooding every few years removes the hazard while keeping a tree that is worth far more standing than as firewood. We only recommend removal when the trunk or major unions are decayed, which we check while we are up there.

Trees on private property that grow towards the street lines are generally the owner's responsibility to keep clear, and the clearance pruning has to be done by people trained for work near live conductors. We do that work in Kangaroo Flat regularly; ring us and we will tell you where the line of responsibility sits for your particular tree.

Deciduous fruit trees such as apricots, plums and apples are pruned in winter while dormant, ideally on a dry day, with apricots done on the later side to reduce disease risk. Citrus is pruned lightly after the fruit is picked, never in the frost. We can do the fruit trees and the big trees in the same visit.

Book tree pruning in Kangaroo Flat

Call TB'S Trees on 0498 609 887 and we will come and look at the tree, sort out the access, and give you a set price. Fully insured Bendigo arborists, pruning to the Australian standard since 2015.