Corio
Tree removal in Corio
Tree removal, pruning and emergency work in Corio, whether a big tree is leaning over the roof or has already come down on it.
Tree work in Corio
A mini tornado, a microburst and an old distillery
In October 2006 a storm damaged about 40 houses at Corio, and the State Emergency Service likened it to a mini tornado; one house was left with a big tree in it. Corio was hit again in April 2008, when roofs were torn off and trees blown over. That was a microburst wind storm near Purnell Road, a localised downdraft of the kind that can hit a few streets hard. A big tree leaning over a roof or a carport here is worth reducing or taking down before storm season, not after the next one.
Heritage Overlay HO1728 puts tree controls on the former Corio Distillery complex, including former workers houses, so taking out or lopping a tree anywhere on that heritage place needs a planning permit from the City before a date can be set. The old distillery is now the Cheetham Salt complex, and its heritage citation, written more than twenty-five years ago, says a substantial Norfolk pine and the avenue of trees at the main entrance contribute to its aesthetic significance. Those trees may have changed since, but a pine of that size beside buildings is normally reduced or dismantled in rigged sections rather than felled whole.
Sources: Geelong cleans up after 'mini tornado', ABC News (retrieved 14/10/2026); Winds over 120km/h wreck Corio properties, Geelong Independent (retrieved 14/10/2026); Schedule to the Heritage Overlay, Greater Geelong Planning Scheme (retrieved 13/10/2026); Former Corio Distillery Complex (HO1728), Greater Geelong Outer Areas Heritage Study 2000, Victorian Heritage Database (retrieved 14/10/2026); Trees dataset, City of Greater Geelong (Geelong Data Exchange) (retrieved 14/10/2026); Gallipoli Oak, Geelong Grammar School, Corio, National Trust significant tree register (retrieved 14/10/2026)
Services in Corio
Leaning trees, fallen trees and heavy limbs
Tree removal
Trees that lean over the house taken down from the top, a piece at a time, clear of the roof and the carport.
Emergency tree removal
Trees and limbs a storm has dropped on the roof, the fence or the car cut up and taken away.
Tree pruning
Heavy limbs over the roof shortened, so there is less weight to come down in a big wind.
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.
Corio questions
Nature strip gums, a Gallipoli oak and storm damage
Who prunes the little gums on the nature strips?
The City does, and it decides whether one comes out. Among its street trees, Corio has 588 of the 4,022 dwarf lemon scented gums, the most of any suburb. A tree contractor can still work on the block behind one, as long as the chipper, the stump grinder and any outriggers stay off the gum's roots and out of its crown.
What about the Gallipoli oak at the grammar school?
The National Trust's register of significant trees lists a Gallipoli oak at Geelong Grammar School as one of only two known mature examples of the species in Victoria, and notes that acorns brought back from Gallipoli were presented to the school. Work anywhere near a tree like that is planned around its crown and root zone: machines stay off the ground over its roots, and any pruning is kept to what the tree needs.
What happens if a tree comes down on the house?
The house comes first. The structure is checked as safe to work on before anyone climbs onto it, and where the frame has taken the weight, a structural engineer may need to see it before the tree is lifted off. The tree then comes off in sections, from the top down.
Worried about the next storm?