Tree Felling

Trees may need to be removed for many reasons. The tree may be dead, dangerous or diseased. It may be in an inappropriate location or perhaps it is just not wanted any more.

There are various way to fell a tree. Straight felling is cutting the tree at the base with a directional felling cut (it looks like a wedge of cake or chese removed in the direction you want the tree to fall). If there is not enough room to straight fell a tree, as in most London gardens, then the tree needs to be dismantled in small pieces. This can be difficult to control so lowering ropes and friction devices would be used to lower large bits of wood to the ground in a safe and controlled manor.

In most London back gardens the wood needs to be cut into small bits and carried out by hand or in a wheelbarrow. Sometimes for very large or very dangerous akward trees, and where access will allow a crane can be used.

Unfortunately the wood from felled trees, especially in London, is cut up so small it cannot be used for anything except fire wood. However, if the right tree species and circumstances occur sometimes bowls can be turned or planks milled from the timber.

Wherever possible we advise to replace a felled tree by replanting with the same species or a more appropriate species for the location.

Tools of the Trade

The tree surgeons at The Tree Company (London) use many tools to help carry out the various tree related operations involved in Arboriculture. Tree surgeons need a few hand tools including sledgehammers, stake drivers for planting and the humble axe. They are all important members of the tool box.

There are a few different types of axe, including the splitting axe and the felling axe. They are a versatile tool and are not limited to felling or splitting. These days we use chainsaws to fell trees but the axe is used to split wood, either for fire wood or just to make big logs smaller so we can extract timber from those small London gardens. The hand tools we use take a pounding and they do break from time to time. 

An axe head is like an old friend, so we are keen not just to replace them when they break. We take them to a tool merchant where the broken handles are loving replaced for us, using air-dried ash wood. It does not take long and that old axe head lives to fight another day.