Herring Felling is cutting a tree at the base and bringing it down in one piece. Whether that is even an option comes down to whether there is a safe landing area, and our Nottingham tree removal guide covers that decision along with what drives the cost.
This page is about the three things people ask us next, once the method is settled: does it matter what kind of tree it is, does it matter what time of year it is, and what about the site itself.
Species Changes the Job More Than People Expect
A tree is not a tree. The species dictates how the wood behaves under the saw, how the weight sits, and how predictable the fall is.
The ones we come across most often around Nottingham and the county:
- Leylandii and other conifers — light for their size, but a dense root plate and a habit of growing in a solid row that has to be worked along
- Poplar and willow — fast, soft and brittle, which makes them unpredictable and unforgiving of a badly placed cut
- Ash — commonly affected by dieback, and dead ash becomes brittle quickly
- Sycamore — heavy, dense, and generates a very large volume of material
- Birch — usually straightforward, but often multi-stemmed from the base
- Oak — extremely heavy for its size, and frequently the tree most likely to be protected
- Cherry and plum — smaller jobs, but prone to hidden decay at old pruning wounds
None of that is a reason for alarm about your tree. It is the reason we want to look at it before quoting rather than price it from a description over the phone.
The Season That Actually Stops Work
For most tree work, timing is a preference. For felling, there is one hard constraint worth knowing about before you book.
Active birds’ nests are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. It is an offence to intentionally damage or destroy a nest while it is in use or being built. The main nesting season runs roughly March to August, and it is not a guideline we can work around: if there is an active nest in the tree, the work waits.
In practice this rarely cancels a job. It sometimes moves one. We check before starting, and if we find a nest partway through, we stop and come back. If a contractor tells you nesting season is not a problem in June, that tells you something useful about the contractor.
Beyond that, winter felling is generally easier — no leaves, better visibility of the structure, and less mess — but ground conditions are worse, and a heavy machine on a saturated lawn does more damage than the same machine in July.
What Your Site Allows
Nottingham is a dense city, and the same tree in two different gardens is two different jobs.
What we are looking at on the visit:
- Whether there is a genuine drop zone, or whether the tree has to be dismantled instead
- The width of the side access, because that decides how the waste leaves
- Whether the truck and chipper can stand near enough to be useful
- What runs overhead — service cables to the house catch people out constantly
- Whether a neighbour needs to know, and whether anything of theirs needs moving
- Ground conditions, drain covers, and anything buried that we should not drive over
Where the drop zone is not there, the tree comes down in sections instead. Our guide to what dismantling actually costs explains why that is a different price, and our sectional dismantling article covers the method itself.
Protected Trees Come First, Not Last
Before we quote any felling in Nottingham we check whether the tree carries a Tree Preservation Order or stands within a conservation area. Several parts of the city do have conservation area status, and Nottingham City Council or the relevant district authority can confirm the position for a given address.
Felling a protected tree without consent is an expensive mistake, and the liability lands on the property owner rather than the contractor. This check costs you nothing and it happens on every job.
When We Would Rather You Did Not Fell It
Plenty of felling enquiries are really about something else. Too much shade, a branch on the garage, leaves in the gutter, roots near a path.
Shade is usually a reduction or a crown lift. A branch on the garage is usually one targeted cut. Leaves in the gutter are, honestly, a gutter guard rather than losing a mature tree. And a tree that is simply large is not a tree that is dangerous.
We will say so on the visit. Felling a tree that did not need felling is a job we would rather not have on our record.
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