This very large  Tree of Heaven, growing in Chiswick, West London, had to be removed as it was too close to the neighbouring buildings and properties.

It is always sad day for us tree loving folk to remove such a large tree, but often there is no other choice.

See our blog on Tree Planting and Choice for more information on this topic.

This species of tree is native to the rain forests of India and is notorious for very brittle timber and shedding of large limbs. It grows very quickly, with a mature size often too large for most London gardens. It prolifically self-seeds as well with hundreds of saplings arisings from a parent tree. In certain areas they can be classed as an invasive species and are typically classed as high maintenance trees often requiring intervention from a tree surgeon on a regular basis in order to keep them maintained and suitable for their location. Especially in built up urban areas!

Given the location and size of the tree, this was a particularly challenging and demanding operation which took our qualified and experienced team two days to complete.

Advanced aerial tree rigging techniques were required in order to ensure a safe, controlled dismantling process to minimise disruption to the surrounding areas. See our Tree Removal page for more information.

This involved the use of specialist rigging ropes attached to the sections being removed, secured to the tree using slings, carabiners and friction saving pulleys. The cut sections were safely and smoothly lowered to the ground by the groundsman using a friction management device known as a bollard.

Once safely on the floor, the cut sections were processed and loaded onto our trucks to be carted off site.

One of the requirements of the job was to remove the stump and extensive surface root system.

For this job we opted for the use of a large, hydraulically operated stump grinder to ensure we ground down to the required depth so that the area could be put to better use in the future. This also helped in significantly lowering vibration levels felt by the machine operator, compared to smaller manually operated machines and greatly improved the efficiency of the task.