Ceres
Tree removal in Ceres
Tree removal, pruning and emergency work in Ceres, from farm trees on the slopes above the Barwon to gardens around the village.
Tree work in Ceres
Hillside lots and a century of cypress rows
Victorian Places describes Ceres as a rural village on a summit of the Barrabool Hills, and says the locality slopes northwards to its boundary on the Barwon River. Farm and garden trees on those slopes often stand where a truck cannot drive up to them, so the job is planned around a tracked machine, or around climbing and rigging, and the cut timber is carried or winched back up to the road.
A heritage citation written for the City several years ago records that rows of cypress trees at the Ceres Recreation Reserve were planted by local state school children in 1922 and 1924. It described several of those trees as senescent, and said they then formed the perimeter of the reserve. Cypresses in that state can shed heavy limbs, so work on them is done in sections by climbers on ropes rather than by felling whole trees, with the memorial gates kept clear of falling timber.
Sources: Ceres, Victorian Places (retrieved 15/10/2026); Ceres Recreation Reserve, including Memorial Gates and Trees, Victorian Heritage Database (retrieved 15/10/2026); Schedule to the Heritage Overlay, Greater Geelong Planning Scheme (retrieved 13/10/2026); Ceres Primary School, Victorian Heritage Database (retrieved 15/10/2026)
Services in Ceres
Sloping ground, old conifers and fallen limbs
Tree removal
Trees on the slopes toward the river dismantled piece by piece where there is no level ground to fell them.
Tree pruning
Deadwood and heavy limbs cut from big old conifers by a climber working on ropes.
Emergency tree removal
A heavy limb or a whole tree blown over on a sloping lot, sawn into lengths and taken out to the road.
What it costs: tree removal cost, stump grinding cost
Compared: removal, lopping or pruning, stump grinding or stump removal, council tree rules compared
How it works
From the first call to a clear garden
Nothing happens without a written quote you have agreed to.
Tell us about the tree
Call or send the form with the tree and what is worrying you.
A contractor comes to see it
A local tree contractor looks at the tree, the access and whatever sits underneath it, because a quote off a photo misses the things that change the job.
A written quote
The quote sets out the scope, what happens to the timber and the stump, and the date. It is the contractor's quote, and nothing starts until you accept it.
The work and the clean up
On the day the tree is dealt with as quoted, the green waste leaves on the truck and the lawn is raked.
Ceres questions
Reserve cypresses under heritage controls, and a schoolyard palm
Can the old cypresses at the recreation reserve be cut back?
Not as a straight booking. In the Greater Geelong heritage overlay schedule, the Ceres Recreation Reserve is listed together with its memorial gates, and tree controls apply to the mature cypress trees there. Where those controls apply, the planning scheme requires a permit to remove, destroy or lop a tree, so pruning one of these cypresses waits on a council decision.
What about the old palm at the primary school?
The school's heritage citation, from the same City study as the reserve's, counts the mature Washingtonia robusta palm at the front of Ceres Primary School among the fabric of significance, and says it appears to have been planted in 1901. A palm of that age is likely to be very tall, so taking off old fronds calls for an elevated work platform or a palm climber, and work on a tree in the school grounds is arranged with the school.
Tree on a hillside lot?