Crown lifting

What it is

Crown lifting is the removal of the lowest limbs of a tree, to raise the underside of the canopy. You’re not making the tree smaller in any meaningful way. You’re giving yourself headroom, light, or clearance where before there was a low branch in your face.

As a rule we won’t lift the canopy higher than about a third of the total tree height. A ten metre oak can be lifted to maybe three metres off the ground. Much more than that and the tree looks lollipopped and the weight distribution goes wrong.

When a lift is the right call

• A driveway, path or patio runs under the tree and you want clearance for the car, the bins or a head.
• The lower limbs are resting on a shed, garage roof or conservatory.
• You can’t get a mower under it and the grass underneath has died off.
• A street tree on the boundary is brushing the pavement and you’ve had a word from the council.
• The side of the canopy facing the house is pushing into gutters or windows and you’d like it raised instead of reduced.

How we do it

• Walk the tree first. We agree the target clearance height with you in the garden, often with a tape measure against whatever you want clearance from, before any cuts are planned.
• Nesting-bird check between March and August. Legal duty. If there’s an active nest, we wait or we work around it.
• Work back to the trunk, not a stub, to BS3998. Each limb comes off cleanly at the branch collar. No tear-outs, no ripped bark down the stem.
• One third rule. We won’t raise the canopy past a third of the tree’s height in one go, and often less on a young tree or a species that doesn’t tolerate heavy removal.
• Waste chipped on site, cleared on the truck. Logs stacked where you want them, drive blown clear before we leave.

What it costs

Priced per tree after a site visit. Height, species, how many limbs are coming off, access for the chipper and whether the tree is TPO’d all move the number. A lift on a mature hornbeam over a driveway is a different job to a lift on a young cherry at the bottom of the garden. We’ll put a written quote in front of you within two working days.

What we won’t do

We won’t lift a tree past the point where the top becomes disproportionate to the bottom. A mature tree with a tiny strip of canopy on a tall bare stem is top-heavy, unstable in the wind, and rarely what the customer actually wanted when they asked for “a bit more light”. If a lift alone won’t give you what you’re after, we’ll say so and suggest a reduction instead.

TPOs and conservation areas

If your tree is in a conservation area and over 75mm in diameter at 1.5 metres, you generally need to file a Section 211 notice with the council before any work starts. The council then has six weeks to respond. A TPO’d tree needs a formal application regardless. We file the paperwork with Hastings Borough Council or Rother District Council on your behalf and wait the clock out before we put a saw in.