Tree Removal
Whole-tree takedowns on tight peninsula blocks, sectional dismantle or crane where the driveway will not take a truck.
Learn more →What a screen actually needs
Most Northern Beaches hedges are lilly pilly, viburnum, pittosporum, murraya or photinia, planted for privacy between blocks that sit close together. They all share the same failure pattern: cut only on the outside face for years, the plant goes hollow in the middle, and the green shell gets thinner until a gap appears that will not fill in.
The fix is a taper and a reduction. Cutting the hedge slightly narrower at the top than the bottom lets light onto the lower foliage, which is what keeps the base dense. Taking the face back past the previous cut line, into wood that will still shoot, is what restores depth. Both take longer than a quick shear and both are worth it.
The salt, the psyllids and the wet
Coastal hedges here have specific problems. On exposed blocks near the beachfronts at Freshwater, Dee Why and Collaroy, salt burns the seaward face and the plants look one-sided no matter how they are cut — that is exposure, not bad trimming, and the answer is species choice rather than more cutting.
Lilly pilly psyllid causes the pimpled, distorted new growth that almost every Sydney hedge shows at some point. Cutting off affected flush regularly reduces it. And through the humid months, dense screens on the shaded southern side of a house hold moisture and develop fungal leaf spot, which thinning helps more than feeding does.
Height reduction on trees, done properly
This is where we say no more often than yes. A reduction removes the end weight from limbs by cutting back to a lateral branch big enough to take over as the new leader tip. Done inside the tree's tolerance it lowers the canopy, cuts the leverage on weak unions, and the tree keeps a natural shape.
Topping does none of that. Cutting a blackbutt or a Sydney red gum off at a flat height leaves large wounds the tree cannot seal, and the response is a crowd of epicormic shoots attached only to the outer wood. Within a few years they are tall, heavy and poorly anchored. If the real goal is to be rid of the tree, removal is the cheaper and safer answer, subject to council approval. If the goal is a lower, safer canopy, structural pruning is the route.
Booking it
Hedge work is quoted on run length, height and how far past the last cut things have gone, plus what happens to the clippings — chipped and left as mulch, or carted. Access matters less than it does for tree work, but a hedge along a steep boundary or over a retaining wall still needs planning.
Call (02) 9000 1858, see the cost guide for what moves a price, or check your suburb on the service areas page.
More services
Explore our other services
Tree Lopping and Pruning
Crown thinning, deadwooding and clearance pruning that leaves a eucalypt stable through a southerly buster.
Learn more →Stump Grinding and Removal
Grinding stumps and surface roots below grade so you can turf, pave or replant over sandstone shelf.
Learn more →Palm Tree Removal
Cocos, Canary Island date and bangalow palms cut down or cleaned up, with the seed heads bagged before they drop.
Learn more →Emergency and Storm Damage
After-hours callouts for trees on roofs, hung-up limbs and blocked driveways once an east coast low has passed.
Learn more →
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
How often do Northern Beaches hedges need cutting?
Twice a year suits most screens here. Lilly pilly, viburnum and pittosporum all push hard through the warm wet months, so a cut in early spring and another in late summer keeps a clean face. Murraya and photinia can stretch to one cut a year. Let a hedge go for two seasons and you are into remedial work rather than maintenance.
Can you reduce the height of a tree instead of removing it?
Sometimes, within limits. A proper reduction shortens limbs back to suitable lateral growth points and can take perhaps ten to twenty per cent off a canopy without harming the tree. What cannot be done responsibly is cutting a mature eucalypt off at a chosen height. That is topping, it produces weak regrowth, and it makes the tree more dangerous.
Do hedges need council approval on the Northern Beaches?
Routine trimming of a maintained hedge does not. It becomes a question once the plants have grown into trees, because Northern Beaches Council's tree controls apply on size, not on what you call it. A row of lilly pillies that has reached eight metres is a line of trees, and cutting them hard is the kind of work that needs checking first.
My neighbour's hedge blocks my sunlight. What can I do?
In NSW there is a process under the Trees (Disputes Between Neighbours) Act for hedges of two or more trees that severely obstruct sunlight or a view, heard by the Land and Environment Court, and it requires you to have made a genuine attempt to resolve it first. It is not something a tree contractor can act on. Nobody should cut a neighbour's plants without the owner's agreement.
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