What is an Arborist or Arboriculturalist ?

An Arboriculturalist is an amenity tree specialist. Arboriculture deals with all aspects of the growing, maintaining and removing of woody plants for any reason.

Arboriculturalist work in towns, cities and rural regions. Arboriculture is not limited, the variety of species and situations the Arboriculturalist must be prepared to assess and understand is almost endless. Arboriculture is a service industry, dealing, on daily basis with the fears, needs and aspirations of people and the impacts, liabilities and constraints of the trees around them.

Trees are recognised as very important for both the landscape and the townscape. However, whilst the benefits of trees are recognised within legislation to far outweigh the problems of management and maintenance they create, it is not necessarily quite so easy to believe “that statement” when you are the person living under the tree. Arboriculturalist can find ways to ease the conflict between trees and people.

We live in an increasingly litigious society. More and more people seek someone to blame or sue for every accident in life. In our opinion the true risk associated with tree retention is not that high and remedial works are only really necessary in extreme cases. However, a tree liability survey carried out by a qualified Arborist will assess your trees and provide an effective Tree Management and Tree Maintenance Plan to safeguard you against possible future liability claims.

The relationship between trees and buildings - present and future, existing and proposed - is a massive subject area for Arboriculturalist. Trees may be a major factor in Planning Applications and Building Insurance matters. Your Arboriculturalist needs a very thorough understanding of the relationship between living trees and built form, sunlight, daylight, moisture management and physical impact.