Almost a year ago, I made the decision to take my skills in climbing, project management and arboriculture to the next level, and start putting together a team that could offer professional and affordable tree care services to our local community and beyond.

To catch you attention if you are reading this thinking it will be some sort of obituary, I can assure you, that everything is going just fine for us a year later! It has been a very steep learning curve getting the business side correct to say the least! I have probably picked the worst time possible politically to start a high cost, small margin business, but I’m settled in the knowledge that every one of my clients in the past 12 months has been happy with the service. That fact alone gives me great satisfaction.

One of the things I’ve really had to learn fast, is how to manage a small crew. In fact, I have been doing this for most of my life, albeit in different circumstances. It is undoubtedly a physical job, and there are sometimes where you really want to be somewhere else (big sticky sitka spruce trees I’m looking at you!), so it definitely takes a certain character to do what we do.

Keeping everyone happy in a crew doing hard manual work is really tricky, especially given our wet weather! I have been so lucky over the last 12 months to have had help from some great local workers, both on the ground and in the canopy!

Another learning curve for me has been how to provide adequate training, since the kind of work we undertake can involve complex ropework and coordination. It is a requirement and an obligation of myself as an employer that I take very seriously. It is maybe not as common knowledge as I thought, that in order to be insured to do what we do in the canopy, or on the ground, requires certification from either NPTC or LANTRA. To use a chainsaw, for example, is a 5 day course, and then a full day assessment, with NPTC.

Running a small team, doing the technical and physical work, and providing on the job supervision and training is exhausting, but extremely rewarding! As the work has become more and more technical, having experienced help come in has been really great. I’m going to single out Tomas Kyncl of Tilia Tree Care (https://tiliatreecare.co.uk) , and Ross Sorley of Forest to Floor (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090835160667), for particular thanks. Its been great to be able to bounce ideas about some more technical challenges, and also have the experienced support on the ground and in the canopy!

I always offer to my clients, copies of any certifications, insurance documents, method statements or risk assessments. These documents prove my commitment to looking after my team, your worksite, and the public in general!

Another aspect of running this small business has been dealing with the Council, and other corporate entities. Just about all the villages in Strathearn have some sort of conservation area. On one hand, its one of the reasons our area is one of the most desirable places to live in the country (arguably), one the other hand, it makes simple things like arranging to have your cypress hedge cut, or annual pollarding, require a bit more planning.

The conservation area restrictions for tree work for Perth and Kinross Council are detailed on the following link.

https://www.pkc.gov.uk/article/15281/Trees-and-the-law

I have tried my best over the last 12 months to encourage compliance with the rules above, and it can be a hard sell for some. This policy has definitely lost me work in the past! It is not my place to question to laws imposed on us, but I do my best to make the process as quick and smooth as possible.

We have had some very interesting jobs this year! Here are a few more technical highlights.

Eucalypsus removal – St Fillans.

This tree was one of the first jobs I priced up after going solo. It was about 20m tall, and had very much out grown it’s small garden space! Gum trees like this grow very quickly. It’s always a judgement call removing healthy trees like this,  but removal and replacement with something more fitting, like a hawthorn or even Alder, was the correct course of action in my opinion. The national park authority took an aligned stance after going through planning.

There was an oil tank right underneath the base, and a very modest landing zone! But I’m pleased to say we removed the tree safely, and without any incident. On what turned out to be one of the hottest days of the year too!

Fir Removal – Lochearnhead

This was a real challenge! How to get all that tree to the chipper, without any damage to the garden and conservatory?  We opted to mitigate the obvious manual handling and set up a controlled speedline. We had the vast majority of the big pieces land next to the chipper in a controlled manner, much to the delight of the ground crew, who did have to haul in excess of 5 tonnes of timber  across the slope of the garden. Great result! In this case the tree was only about 35 years old, and even after being “topped” in the past, it was north of 25m tall, and 1m diameter at felling height… these are big trees that grow fast. An interesting, and probably thoughtless, consequence of planting you Christmas Tree in your garden to “save it”!

Red Oak, 20% Canopy Reduction, Comrie

It’s extremely difficult to make a heavy canopy reduction look aesthetically pleasing from the get go, but I’m very happy with how this red oak has turned out. It should hold a nice form now for a few seasons.

Once you reduct a tree’s canopy in this manner, it is important to consider a 2-3 year management plan, as the regrowth from the pruning points can lead to problems such as “lion’s tailing”, and subsequent disfunction. A large percentage of my storm damage callouts recently have been due to trees which have been pruned in years gone by, and then lapsed, with heavy limbs developing around ever increasing rot pockets where the wounds were.

Jobs like this would be impossible without a good team working well together and understanding instructions. I’ve been very lucky indeed to have had some great people working for me, it’s been a really challenge learning how to be a good “boss”. I’ve definitely got some things wrong down the line, but I’m really pleased with how everything has ended up so far, and have a firm direction about how I want us to grow!

As I set sail into the second year of business, I’m looking forward to helping more people look after their trees and garden spaces, with my small crew of keen tree surgeons from Strathearn!