Taking Care Of Trees

I had 3 stumps that needed to go, and had all but decided to hire a stump grinder to do the job myself, given that I’d already taken the trees down myself. At my wife’s suggestion I sought 2 quotes, fully expecting them to confirm that I was saving heaps by doing it myself. When I read Dave F’s review on Yellow Pages I thought I’d stear clear of Taking Care of Trees, but I thought TCT’s response to that review was pretty reasonable, so sent an online enquiry that night. I had a reply from Emma early next morning, sent them a photo of each stump and told them the width of the two gateways accessing the stumps. An hour later I had a quote that wasn’t much more than the hire cost of a stump grinder, so by mid afternoon I’d accepted their quote and had agreed a time – first thing next morning. Ed arrived precisely when he said he would and by 9:30 the job was finished and Ed was on his way to his next job. I could not have been happier. Job completed 100% to spec 36 hours after my first enquiry and at a great price. Friendly, knowledgeable support staff and Ed on his very un-subtle grinder was a maestro.

They were a whole lot cheaper than the other quote I got. The cheerful and friendly team arrived the same day to tackle the job, and took less than an hour to do what they did.

That's the positive, now the negative. My agreement with the salesman was to demolish a tree in my back yard and remove the branch of my Peppercorn that was tangled in it's branches. Also to poison the stump and leave me some mulch.

They chose not to remove the branch of the Peppercorn on the grounds that it's "quite healthy", even though it sticks right out from the rest of the tree and looks ridiculous.

I wasn't allowed to have my mulch because the truck couldn't be backed into my drive due to overhead power cables, and they can't legally dump mulch in the road. Fair enough, but I was also told they can't empty the truck until it's full, and that it's incapable of dumping only part of a load! And they declined to turn the mulching machine and blow some mulch onto my front garden, on the grounds that "a wood chip might be flung towards the house and break a window".

As to their guarantee of always cleaning up after them, some of my back yard is in the process of being paved, so I told them not to bother trying to sweep the detritus off the sand. As a result they didn't do ANY cleanup; I was left with detritus strewn all over the pavers, in my car port, on the drive, and on the road in front of my house.

What's worse is that I noticed large patches of what looked like oil smeared on my pavers and in the car port. When I asked about it I was told it was just sap from the freshly cut timber and it would disappear when it dried. Well, it has dried, and it hasn't disappeared, and I've no idea how to clean it up. I don't know if they bothered to poison the stump. I can't see any evidence of it.

I've since noticed that they shifted one of the posts supporting my carport, maybe crashed into it with their hand trolly piled with logs. It's a wonder they didn't bring it down on them.