Trees and Hedges During a Clearance

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Almost every overgrown garden has some tree or hedge work in it, and doing the whole lot in one visit is considerably cheaper than arranging it separately. The reason it is quoted as separate lines is not to add cost — it is so the quotation means something.

What Counts as Clearance and What Does Not

The line is roughly where a chainsaw at ground level stops being enough:

Clearance — scrub, brambles, self-seeded saplings up to the thickness of an arm, overgrown shrubs, rough grass, ground ivy
Tree work — anything needing a climber, a rope, sectional dismantling or a genuine drop zone. Any mature tree, whatever its condition
Hedge work — anything being cut to a line and kept, as opposed to removed
Stump grinding — its own machine, its own access

The saplings point is the one that catches people. A self-seeded ash that went unnoticed for twelve years is not a sapling any more, and it is tree work.

An arborist sectioning a felled trunk with a chainsaw.

Why Doing It Together Saves Real Money

Three overlaps, and they are substantial:

One mobilisation. Getting a team, a chipper and a tipper to your address happens once instead of three times
Shared waste removal. Tree work fills a vehicle; so does clearance. Doing both means fewer part-loads
Shared access setup. Boarding, protection, gate removal, parking arrangements — all done once

The Order It Should Happen In

Tree work first. Sections and brash come down into the garden, and there is no point clearing ground that is about to have a tree dropped on it
Hedge reduction next, for the same reason — a hard reduction rains material onto whatever is below
Then the clearance, which picks up the tree and hedge debris as part of the work
Stump grinding once the ground is visible, which is usually when the stumps nobody knew about get found
Cultivation and levelling last, if the ground is being prepared for anything

The Permissions Question

Check for Tree Preservation Orders and conservation areas before booking, not during. Clearance is unaffected, but a protected tree in the middle of it stops that part of the job dead, and the consent process takes weeks. Self-seeded growth is generally not caught; a mature tree, or a tree grown up in a hedge line in a conservation area, may well be. The check with the council is free.

What Gets Found

Clearance is where the tree and hedge problems get discovered, because for the first time in years anybody can see them:

Trees inside hedge lines, often several
Defects on trunks that were hidden under ivy
Stumps from trees felled years ago
Fences that were being held up by the growth
Boundaries that are not where everybody assumed

We will point these out as they appear rather than at the end. Some of them change the quotation, and it is better to have that conversation while the team is still on site.

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