Questions people actually ask

Sometimes, and it is worth finding out before you book anyone. You need consent if the tree carries a Tree Preservation Order, and you need to give the council six weeks' written notice if the tree stands in a conservation area and its trunk is more than 75mm across measured at 1.5m from the ground. St Albans district has 19 conservation areas, so this catches far more gardens here than people expect. Outside both of those, a garden tree on your own land is normally yours to manage. We run the check as part of quoting, and we tell you which of the three positions you are in.

Two routes, both free. The council's mapping service carries a planning constraints layer that shows TPOs and conservation area boundaries against your address, and the council also publishes a searchable list of TPO numbers. Area orders are the ones people miss: they cover every qualifying tree inside a drawn boundary, so nothing about your individual tree looks special. Start at the council's tree preservation order page. If you would rather not, we check the register on every job before we quote, and we put what we find in writing.

Six weeks from the date the council validates your section 211 notice. That is a national rule, not a local one, and during those six weeks the council can decide to place a TPO on the tree instead of letting the work go ahead. St Albans also runs a fast-track service that aims to give a decision by the end of the fourth week after validation, which is worth using if you are working to a sale or a build programme. Nothing about paying for the work speeds up the clock, and any firm telling you otherwise is telling you something that is not true.

It is a criminal offence, and the penalties are set against each tree. Destroying a protected tree, or damaging it so badly that it has to come out, carries a maximum fine of £20,000 per tree. Wilful damage that falls short of destruction carries a maximum of £2,500 per tree. The council can also require a replacement tree to be planted. In practice the homeowner who instructed the work is the one who carries it, which is why we will not start a job on a protected tree until the consent or the notice is in place.

No, but the exemption is narrower than most people assume. Where a protected tree is dead, or presents an immediate risk of serious harm, work may proceed with five working days' written notice to the council, and only the minimum work needed to remove the danger is covered. Where the risk is genuinely immediate, the notice can follow rather than precede the work, but you must still give it. Photographs taken before anything is cut are the difference between a defensible position and a fine, so take them and keep them. If there is a risk to life, that is a 999 call, not a tree surgeon call.

St Albans City and District Council owns and manages trees in its parks, green spaces, housing land, allotments and cemeteries, and surveys them on a rolling three-year cycle. Hertfordshire County Council is the highway authority and looks after trees on the public highway. Everything else belongs to the landowner, which on a boundary is not always the person whose garden the branches hang over. We settle this before we quote, because instructing work on somebody else's tree is a fast way to a bill you did not expect.

Not necessarily, and this is one to slow down on. St Albans sits on shrink-swell clay, which moves with the seasons whether or not a tree is nearby, and plenty of cracks are thermal or historic rather than structural. If you intend to claim against a council tree, the council publishes what the evidence has to include: proof of ownership, twelve months of continuous level monitoring, twelve months of crack width monitoring, a structural investigation with boreholes, an engineering appraisal, heave calculations, and an arboricultural report identifying the tree's proximity to the property with DNA root identification. Felling first destroys the evidence and can cause heave in its own right. Our guide on clay, roots and cracks sets out the order to do things in.

It depends far more on access than on the tree. A tree with a clear drop zone and a chipper at the kerb is a fraction of the cost of the same tree over a conservatory with everything roped down and barrowed out. For a published anchor, the Checkatrade directory listing for emergency tree surgeons in St Albans quotes a range of about £327 to £875 with an average around £541, and most emergency jobs here do land somewhere between about £300 and £900. Planned removals of large trees run higher, reports and surveys are priced separately, and none of those numbers are our quote. Ours comes from a site visit and is fixed in writing before anyone starts.

Late autumn and winter, for two reasons that have nothing to do with sales. Demand drops once the leaves are down, and the work itself is quicker: no foliage means less volume to chip, clearer sight lines in the canopy and less damage to the lawn underneath. Deciduous trees are also easier to assess bare, because defects that hide behind leaves in July are obvious in January. The exceptions are trees that bleed heavily when cut in late winter, such as birch and maple, and anything where waiting is not safe.

Only after we have checked it, and sometimes the honest answer is no. It is an offence to intentionally damage or destroy the nest of a wild bird while it is in use or being built, and the main nesting season runs from roughly March to August. That does not ban hedge work outright, but it does put the responsibility on whoever picks up the trimmer. We look through the hedge before a blade starts, and if there is an active nest we leave that section and come back. Anyone who tells you nesting season is not their problem is telling you how they work.

Ask four questions of anyone quoting, including us. First, what public liability cover is in place, and can you see the certificate rather than a photograph of a logo. Second, is there employers' liability cover if more than one person is on site. Third, what chainsaw and aerial rescue qualifications the climber holds, by name, and can you see the cards. Fourth, who is taking the waste away and under what waste carrier registration. Any firm that hesitates on the certificate is answering the question. Ours goes out with the quote if you ask for it, before anyone sets foot in the garden.