Spencer
Tree removal in Spencer
Tree removal, pruning and stump grinding in Spencer, from the bush-edge blocks to the trees around the old church and its graves.
Tree work in Spencer
A listed church, its graveyard and large camphor laurels
Council's local environmental plan lists Holy Trinity Church, graveyard and wharf, at Spencer, as a heritage item of local significance. The State Heritage Inventory describes a small timber church on a knoll near where Popran and Mangrove creeks meet, on a grassed slope with cultural plantings including large camphor laurel trees and bushland behind the cemetery.
Camphor laurels grow broad, heavy crowns. Taking one back or down beside the graveyard means cutting it in short sections and lowering each one on a rope, so that nothing lands on a headstone. Their surface roots spread wide, which limits where a stump grinder can work among the graves.
Services in Spencer
Heavy crowns, graves below and the heritage question
Tree pruning
Broad crowns reduced a piece at a time where the drop zone holds graves, a shed or a roof.
Tree removal
Dead and fire-damaged trees by the house felled or lowered well before summer.
Tree removal permits
The heritage question for any tree on the church site taken to council before a saw is started.
How it works
From the first message to a written quote
The council question is settled before any price, and nothing is booked until you have said yes to a quote in writing.
- 1
Tell us what the tree is doing
Where it stands, what it is close to and what you would like done about it.
- 2
A contractor comes to see it
A tree contractor who covers your suburb looks at the tree, the access and what is underneath it.
- 3
The council question is answered
Height, trunk size, distance from the house and the species decide whether a permit or an exemption applies.
- 4
You get it in writing
Scope, timber, stump and date on one page, and nothing is booked until you have said yes.
Spencer questions
Weed trees on listed ground, and fire inside the boundary
Do trees in the church grounds need council approval?
As a rule, yes. Council's DCP sets its exemptions aside for heritage items and the trees that form part of them, whatever the species, and the heritage record counts the big camphors among the site's plantings, even though camphor laurel is on council's Undesirable Species List. So heritage approval is settled with council before any pruning or removal starts in the grounds.
Has wildfire burnt inside Spencer?
It has. NPWS fire history records a wildfire named Tarby Gully, which burnt about 193.9 hectares between 30 September and 8 October 2009, all of it within the suburb. On a bush-edge block, that makes the case for taking out dead and overhanging trees near the house, and for keeping a gap between the canopy and the roof.
Is the bush around Spencer burnt on purpose?
Yes: the same history shows a prescribed burn named Spencer HR in March 2010, covering about 116.2 hectares. A prescribed burn named Scotchmans Creek HR followed in May 2017, over about 201.7 hectares. Burning on that scale inside the suburb points to bush that carries fire near homes, so limbs are trimmed back from roofs before each fire season.
