Tree Planting
Tree planting is the part of arboriculture that starts before there's a tree.
Planting a tree that suits the spot
Most tree work is about taking something out. Planting is the opposite job, and it needs just as much thought. Get the species and the position right and the tree looks after itself for years. Get them wrong and someone pays for a removal later.
We plant for homeowners, body corporates and property managers across most of Brisbane.
The calls sound familiar after a while. A big gum came out last winter and the back deck has baked ever since. A strata committee has money set aside for common property and no agreement on what to put in. A new build went up next door and the upstairs windows look straight down at the pool. Someone's kids want a mango tree.
All workable. The trick is matching the tree to the room it has, above ground and below.
A species that suits a wide Carindale backyard is the wrong call against a unit block wall in Taringa, where the planting pocket might be a metre of soil sitting over a slab. Slope changes it again. On the steep blocks around Chapel Hill, water runs off the surface before it soaks in, so the shape of the hole and the mulch ring matter as much as the name on the label. Down on the old river flats near Fig Tree Pocket the soil is often deeper and easier to work, which opens up options that would sulk in heavy clay ten minutes up the road.
A good share of our planting work is body corporate and property management: common property beds, replacement trees after a removal, screening along a boundary that residents have been asking about for two years. The rest is homeowners. Both get the same process.
A planting job with us covers the lot. Site check before we quote. Species options you can go and look at. A check on council rules, protected vegetation and any conditions left over from an earlier removal or approval. Then the day itself: dig, plant, stake, mulch, water in, rubbish on the truck. You get watering instructions in plain English, and we'll come back for a formative prune once it's settled if you want one.
We'll also tell you when an idea won't work. A large fig three metres off a slab is a bill you cop in fifteen years. That conversation is part of what you're paying for.
What people notice before they ring us
The bare patch. It's the most common one. A tree came out for good reason, the stump got ground, and two summers later the yard still looks empty and feels hotter than it used to. Fresh stump grindings are not soil. A new tree planted straight into that mix usually struggles, so we dig the chip out and bring in soil before anything goes in.
The heat. Plenty of the brick and tile stock through Eight Mile Plains and Upper Mount Gravatt has a wide west-facing wall and almost no canopy left on the block. The aircon starts running in November and doesn't stop. One well-placed shade tree on the western side does more for that than another row of shrubs along the fence.
Overlooking. Post-war houses in Tarragindi and Camp Hill now sit beside two-storey rebuilds. Screening is the second-biggest reason people ring us. It's also where the worst advice gets handed out, because the fast-growing things that block a window in three years keep going, and they end up in the gutters and the power lines.
Plantings that failed. This one has causes you can see once you dig. Trees that come out of the pot with roots circling the sides need those roots cut or teased out, and most people don't know to do it. Holes dug too deep let the tree settle and bury the root flare, which rots the trunk collar. Mulch piled against the trunk does the same thing. A hole dug in clay and backfilled with bagged potting mix holds water like a bathtub, and the tree drowns in the first wet summer. Then there's the simplest cause of all: nobody watered it past the third week.
Roots where they shouldn't be. Old plantings from the 70s and 80s are in pipes, under paths and through retaining walls all over the city. Most of those trees were sound choices put in the wrong place. That history is why we spend time on the position before we talk species.
Committees notice a different set of problems. Half the palms on common property have gone leggy, two garden beds sit bare after a removal, and residents are emailing about both. There's rarely a record of what was planted or when. We'll walk the property with the manager, mark what stays, what gets replaced and what shouldn't be replanted at all, then put it in a quote a committee can actually vote on.
Compacted soil. Building work, trucks, a shed pad, years of foot traffic over the same strip of lawn. Compaction is the quiet killer of new trees, because roots can't push through it and water sits on top instead of soaking in. We check it with a soil probe and a simple drainage test: dig a hole, fill it with water, see how long it takes to drain away.
Storms. Our wet season pushes a lot of water through the ground from November to March, and a young tree that rocks about in soft soil shears its own roots. Staking done properly stops the rocking without holding the trunk rigid.
How the job runs, from first call to clean-up
First call goes to Bianca in the office. Tell her the address, what came out or what you're after, and roughly what the spot looks like. Photos help. If you're a strata manager, give her the plan number and the contact for site access and we'll work to that.
Site check. An arborist comes out and looks at the ground first: soil type, drainage, how much sun the spot gets in summer against winter, what's overhead and what's under the surface. Power lines, sewer and stormwater runs, irrigation, the edge of a slab, a retaining wall footing. We work out the mature size the position can carry, because the canopy and the root plate both need room. If the site has protected vegetation, a street tree rule, or conditions tied to an earlier approval, you'll hear about it then.
Species options. You'll get a short list that fits the spot, not a nursery catalogue. We'll say what each one does in twenty years, what it drops and when, how it behaves near pipes and paving, and whether it holds up through a western suburbs summer. Pot size matters too. Advanced stock gives you height sooner. Smaller stock often catches up within a few years and settles in better.
The quote. Written, with the inclusions listed: stock, delivery, digging, soil, staking, mulch, watering in and taking the waste away. What moves the price is species and pot size, how many trees are going in, access to the spot, and how hard the ground is. Ring us for a number on your own job.
Booking and notice. For body corporate and strata work we get notice out to residents before the day, sort access and parking, and book around cleaners, gardeners or bin day. Common property jobs in the St Lucia unit blocks often come down to where the truck can sit, so that gets worked out well before we turn up.
The day. We mark out, then dig. Anywhere near services we hand dig. The hole goes two to three times the width of the root ball and no deeper than the ball itself, with the sides broken up so roots can get out into the surrounding soil instead of turning back on themselves. We check the root ball, cut or tease any circling roots, and set the tree with the root flare at finished level. Backfill is mostly the site's own soil, improved where it needs it and firmed in by hand. Then a watering saucer, stakes set outside the root ball with wide soft ties, and mulch 75 to 100mm deep held back off the trunk. Last job is a deep soak.
Clean-up. Spoil goes in the tipper, green waste goes through the chipper, and the drive and paths get blown down before we call it done.
Handover. You get a written watering routine for the first twelve months, what to watch for, and when to ease off. Brush turkeys will rake a fresh mulch ring apart inside a week, so we'll tell you how to handle that too.
Follow-up. Ties and stakes come off at around the twelve month mark, once the trunk can stand up on its own. A formative prune in the first few years sets the branch structure and saves much bigger cuts later on. Body corporates usually fold both into a scheduled maintenance visit.
Stock, gear and the standards we work to
Good planting starts at the nursery. We pick stock against AS 2303, the Australian Standard for nursery tree stock, which covers root ball quality, trunk taper and the balance between top growth and roots. A tall, skinny tree in a small pot looks like value and rarely is. If the root ball is already a mat of circling roots, that's a fault the tree carries for life.
On site the gear is simple and matched to the job. Mattocks and hand tools near services, an auger or a machine for bigger holes and harder ground, and the loader for carting soil, mulch and heavy bag stock in one trip rather than twenty barrow runs. Tippers for spoil. The chipper comes along when there's green waste to deal with.
Before any digging we lodge with Before You Dig Australia and work off the plans that come back. Those plans show the general run of services, not the exact depth, so anything close gets opened up by hand. Water, sewer, stormwater, gas, comms and irrigation all live in the top half metre of a suburban yard.
Overhead is the other check. Exclusion zones around powerlines are set by law, and work inside them needs an authorised person. That comes up on the older streets around Kenmore, where lines run through mature street trees. For a planting job it usually just means keeping the mature canopy clear of the conductors, which is a species decision made the day we quote.
Mulch is the cheapest item on the job and it does the most work. A ring of coarse chip 75 to 100mm deep, out towards the edge of the canopy, holds moisture through a dry week, keeps the soil temperature down and stops the whipper snipper getting anywhere near the trunk. We keep it clear of the trunk itself. Mulch packed against bark traps water where the tree can't cope with it.
Pruning follows AS 4373, the Australian Standard for pruning of amenity trees. That applies to a few formative cuts on a young tree as much as it does to a crown reduction on a mature gum. Where planting is part of a development, or sits next to trees that have to stay, AS 4970 covers protecting those trees and their root zones through the works.
Crew safety runs the same way on every job: a safe work method statement for the site, PPE on, chainsaw work to current safe practice guidance, and traffic control where the job spills onto the footpath or the road. Nobody works alone on something that needs two.
Urgent jobs and storm replacements
We'll be straight with you: planting is rarely an emergency. If a tree has come down, or a limb is hanging over a driveway, that's a make-safe job and it goes ahead of everything else. Ring 0421 484 940 and tell us what's happened. The office runs business hours, and storm work gets triaged and fitted in as fast as the crew can get to it.
Replanting after that is a separate visit, and it should be. The stump needs grinding, the chip needs to come out, and the ground wants time to settle before a new tree goes in. Rushing a tree into a fresh stump hole is how you end up doing the job twice.
Deadlines are the real urgency in planting work. A council condition with a compliance date on it. A development approval that lists replacement trees. A settlement, a committee meeting, a budget that has to be spent before June. Tell Bianca the date when you call and we'll say honestly whether we can hit it.
Weather sets the pace as well. Cooler, wetter months give roots time to settle before the heat arrives, so autumn and winter bookings fill up early. We plant year round where there's water available and someone to keep it up. If the wet season is running hard, we'd rather hold a job a week than plant into saturated clay.
Stock can hold things up too. An advanced tree of one particular species might be a few weeks away at the nursery. We'll tell you that up front instead of swapping in something that doesn't suit the spot.
Why people call the Acclaim crew
Acclaim Tree Care does this work in Brisbane, and the business was built in the Kenmore area on body corporate, strata, residential and commercial jobs. Troy Moncur runs it now as a family business, with qualified arborists, trained staff and ongoing training behind the crew. Bianca handles the office and is usually the first person you'll speak to.
Our Google reviews say the same thing again and again. Professional is the word that comes up most. Careful and tidy come next. We'd rather earn those words than talk about them.
Here's what that looks like on a planting job:
- We look at the site before we quote. Every time.
- We'll talk you out of a species that won't work in the spot, even when it's the one you came to us for.
- Pricing gets explained: species, pot size, access, number of trees, ground conditions, waste.
- Neighbours and residents get notice before the truck turns up.
- The site goes back cleaner than we found it.
- Care instructions come in writing, not as a quick rundown at the gate.
Strata and property managers are the core of our work, so the admin side is normal for us. Quotes a committee can read. Clear scope with the inclusions listed. A scheduled maintenance visit that covers the new plantings alongside the established trees, so nobody has to remember to chase it.
The next step is simple. Ring 0421 484 940 with the address and a photo of the spot, or send it through acclaimtreecare.com.au, and we'll book a site check. Tell us what you want the tree to do: shade the deck, screen a window, replace what came out. We'll work back from there.
Frequently asked questions
What does tree planting cost?
It comes down to the species, the pot size, how many trees are going in, access to the spot and how hard the ground is. A single advanced tree in an open backyard is a different job to a row of screening trees behind a unit block. Ring us on 0421 484 940 with the address and what you're after and we'll give you a quote.
How do you pick the right tree for my yard?
We start with the spot, not the tree. Sun, soil, drainage, room above and below, and the distance to the house, fence, driveway and pipes. Then we suggest species that still fit that space at full size. A large gum three metres from a slab causes trouble later, so we'd talk you out of it.
When is the best time to plant in Brisbane?
The cooler, wetter months give roots time to settle before summer heat, so autumn and winter are the easy run. We plant year round where there's water available and someone to keep it up. If timing matters for your job, tell us and we'll plan around it.
Do I need council approval to plant a tree?
Planting usually doesn't need approval, but the site can. Some blocks carry protected vegetation, street tree rules, or conditions tied to an earlier removal or development. We check before we dig and let you know if anything applies.
Can I plant straight back into the hole where the old tree was?
Not straight away, and not into stump grindings. Ground chip is not soil and a new tree planted into it usually struggles. We dig the chip out, bring in soil and let the ground settle first. If the stump hasn't been ground yet, we can sort that as part of the job.
What size trees do you plant?
Anything from smaller pot stock up to advanced trees in bags. Advanced stock gives you height straight away, which suits screening and entry beds. Smaller stock costs less, often catches up within a few years and settles in well. We'll tell you which makes sense for your spot.
Do you look after the tree after planting?
We stake, mulch and water it in, then hand over simple care instructions: how often to water, when to ease off, what to watch for. We can come back to check on it, adjust or remove stakes, and do a formative prune. Body corporates often fold that into a scheduled maintenance visit.
Can you plant screening along a boundary or on common property?
Yes, and it's one of our more common planting jobs. The catch is choosing something that screens a window without ending up in the gutters or the power lines in ten years. We'll look at the boundary, the services and the mature height, then put options in front of you. Call 0421 484 940 to book a site check.
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