Landscape Gardening FAQ Tree & Garden Services in Alresford

At MH Garden And Tree Services, we provide a range of garden and tree services across Alresford, Alresford, Colchester and Essex. We provide mowing, weeding and pruning services to keep your gardens neat, and we can also trim hedges. For trees, we provide tree surgery services, such as thinning, shaping and crown reductions, plus tree cutting, felling and full removal services. 

We cover Alresford, Alresford, Colchester and the nearby towns across Essex. Our team regularly works in areas like Fingringhoe, Brightlingsea, Thorrington, Great Bentley and Frating, as well as other local areas. If you're not sure whether your address is included or not, simply get in touch and we can confirm it for you.

At MH Garden And Tree Services, our tree surgery services include careful pruning and shaping to keep your trees healthy and balanced. We also carry out crown reductions, crown lifting and crown thinning services to manage your tree's size, and if your tree is unsafe or no longer wanted, we also provide tree felling and removal services.

At MH Garden And Tree Services, we make sure all our tree work is carried out by our fully-trained tree surgeons. We take safety and training very seriously, and if you need any assurance, simply ask to see our training certificates, insurance details, or any recent risk assessment for your job.

We can help you understand whether your tree work needs permission or not, but the official TPO check should be done by your local council. In practice, we can ask for your address, explain what details the council will need, and guide you on the next steps before any cutting, pruning, or felling starts. If a tree is protected, you'll normally need consent first, or you could face enforcement action.

In the UK, you don't always need the council's permission before starting any tree work. If a tree has a Tree Preservation Order (TPO), you must apply to the council before pruning, felling, or carrying out any other work. 

Additionally, if the tree is in a conservation area, you also need to give the council notice before starting work. If there's no TPO and it's not in a conservation area, you can usually go ahead with any tree work, but you should still check first.

Yes, we can reduce a tree’s height or spread through our crown reduction, thinning, and shaping services. These services are ideal when a tree is getting too big for your space, blocking light, or growing too close to buildings.

Yes, we provide regular garden maintenance visits, and you can choose a schedule that suits you. We can create a plan with you for weekly, fortnightly, or monthly visits, and stick to it. We can also adjust the tasks each time, as your garden changes through the seasons.

During our garden maintenance visits, we can mow your lawns and tidy up the edges along your paths, patios, and beds. We can also de-weed any borders and look after your plants, including watering, feeding, deadheading, and pruning them. We can also carry out seasonal tidy-ups, such as clearing leaves and cutting back plants.

Yes, as a part of our garden maintenance service, we can mow your lawn and tidy up your edges. This means we can cut the grass to an even height and then tidy the edges along your paths, patios, and flower beds so that the lawn looks sharp and neat.

We offer de-weeding services as a part of our standard garden maintenance visits. Weeds are notorious for growing through the cracks in your flower beds, patios and concrete, which is why we take special care to de-weed your garden's borders and edges.

We also provide pruning services alongside mowing and weeding, so that any shrubs and small plants can be cut back and kept neat and tidy. We can also trim hedges and cut back any overhanging branches.

Most hedges should be trimmed at least once or twice a year to keep their shape intact and promote thick, healthy growth. Fast-growing hedges, like leylandii, often need trimming two to three times a year, whereas slower-growing hedges may only need to be trimmed once a year.

Many hedges should be trimmed during late spring and again in late summer - and this keeps them looking neat during their main growing season. Spring-flowering shrubs should usually be trimmed just after they finish flowering, and summer-flowering shrubs should be trimmed in late winter or early spring.

We can shape your hedges by trimming them little by little, and checking the design line as we go, to keep both sides even. We can create straight edges or softer, rounded shapes, and we can also do topiary if you want something more decorative. For overgrown hedges, we can reduce their height or width to bring them back into balance.

We can reduce both the height and width of overgrown hedges by cutting them back in clear stages, rather than taking too much off at once. We will measure and mark the new line and then trim evenly along the sides and the top so that your hedge looks balanced.

At MH Garden And Tree Services, we always remove the clippings and any green waste after any of our garden services. This is because our general hedge and garden services include waste collection and disposal. We work cleanly, and we aim to leave your site neat and tidy when the job is finished.

Homeowners don't always need the council's permission to remove a tree from their property. If the tree has a Tree Preservation Order (TPO), you must apply to the council before you prune, cut, or fell it, and if the tree is in a conservation area, you usually need to give the council six weeks’ notice first, even if there is no TPO. If neither applies, you can often go ahead with the removal, but it's still best to check with your local council before you start.

MH Garden And Tree Services can help you check if a tree is protected under a TPO. We can ask for your address, the tree’s position, (and photos), then we can point you to your local council’s TPO and conservation area search. The council is the only place that can confirm whether a tree is protected or not, so we can only advise you.

We can remove trees near buildings, fences, or cables by using controlled cutting methods, where we cut the tree section by section, instead of dropping the whole tree at once. We'll assess the space, plan safe drop zones, and use ropes to guide any large branches down. This helps us prevent damage and keep the work area clear.

A tree that's leaning near a house or fence is often removed in sections to reduce the chances of it damaging your property. A trained tree worker will climb the tree or use a platform and then remove the branches first, one at a time. We can also use ropes to lower heavy branches down in a controlled environment, so they don't swing or fall onto your roof, shed, or garden walls. Once the crown is cleared, we can cut the trunk into smaller blocks from the top down.

Stump removal isn't automatically included with every tree removal job from MH Garden And Tree Services, but it can be included if you ask for it. Our stump removal service is an extra option you can add, based on what you need and what your site's access is like.