Tree Services and Arborists Editing and Proofreading Services

A customer asks for a tree to be "cut back hard". The arborist does what was asked, the tree responds with a mass of weak regrowth, the neighbour complains, and then a letter arrives from the council — because the tree was in a conservation area and nobody checked. Two documents would have prevented the whole thing: a specification of what was actually to be done, and a check on whether it was allowed.

We edit what tree surgeons and arborists produce — work specifications and their pruning terminology, statutory protection checks and their documentation, quotations and their inclusions, tree condition and risk assessment reports, felling, dismantling and access documentation, consent application and notification correspondence, arisings, chipping and stump documentation, terms of business and access requirements, insurance and qualification information, and customer guidance on what pruning does to a tree. Our editors work on the specification and the check that has to precede it.

The work specification and the protection check are what separate an arboricultural business from a man with a chainsaw, and their failure is a phrase. "Cut back hard", "reduce", "lift" and "tidy up" mean different things to every customer and every climber. We write these so the work is specified in the trade's terms with a plain translation — a crown reduction with the percentage and the finished height, a crown lift to a stated height above ground, a thinning with a percentage, removal of specific named limbs — since a specification that a second arborist could execute identically is the definition of a professional instruction; so the effect on the tree is described, because a customer who knows that a hard reduction produces dense weak regrowth needing attention in three years may choose something different; so the statutory position is checked and recorded before quoting, with the tree preservation order, the conservation area and the six-week notice period, given that the customer usually does not know and the liability lands on both; so the neighbour's position is addressed where branches overhang, including who owns the arisings; so what happens to the wood, the chip and the stump is stated, as this is the commonest cause of a final disagreement; so the access and the protection of the garden is described; and so any finding about the tree's condition is separated from the work requested, since a customer asking for a tidy-up needs to know about the decay at the base. Specifications written this way keep the tree, the customer and the business out of trouble.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including quotations, reports and customer correspondence. We are editors rather than arborists or planning advisers, and we offer no view on trees, pruning or statutory protection. What we can do is make the specification executable and the check documented.