Lorne
Tree removal in Lorne
Tree removal, pruning and emergency work in Lorne, from tall gums on steep hillside blocks to trees loosened by heavy rain.
Tree work in Lorne
Tall hillside gums, a heritage cypress and the bush edge
Lorne's residential landscape schedule describes a tall indigenous canopy on the tree covered hillsides, dominated by Messmate and Mountain Grey Gum, with Manna Gum, Narrow-leaf Peppermint, Swamp Gum, Blue Gum and the rare Brooker's Gum among the other species. Gums that tall on a steep block are seldom felled in one piece: they are climbed, cut in sections and lowered on ropes, with the slope deciding where each length can land. The schedule singles out Brooker's Gum as rare, so a gum's species is confirmed before its removal is quoted.
Surf Coast's biodiversity policy sets out to encourage the removal of exotic plant species in Lorne, but it excludes trees with heritage value, so a big exotic is checked for heritage controls before it is quoted. The Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority planned to fell a Monterey cypress on Cypress Avenue that was at high risk of stem failure, and the removal was exempt from the heritage overlay because of that high safety risk. It was scheduled for mid June 2025, with a cypress of the same species to replace it.
On Ash Wednesday in 1983, the fires reached Lorne less than two hours after they started. For a block at the bush edge, preparing for summer means taking dead branches out of the crowns, raising the lowest limbs and thinning thick growth beside the walls and gutters while the weather is still mild.
Sources: Significant Landscape Overlay, Lorne Residential Areas, Surf Coast Planning Scheme (retrieved 15/10/2026); Protection of biodiversity in Surf Coast, Surf Coast Planning Scheme (retrieved 14/09/2026); Large tree to be removed in Lorne (June 2025), Surf Coast Times (retrieved 15/10/2026); Burn program aims to cut fire risk in Lorne (March 2026), Surf Coast Times (retrieved 15/10/2026); Emergency teams praised after Lorne flood (January 2026), Surf Coast Times (retrieved 15/10/2026); Lorne Transfer Station, Surf Coast Shire (retrieved 15/10/2026)
Services in Lorne
Hillside removals, heavy limbs and storm work
Tree removal
Messmate and other tall gums on steep blocks taken down a section at a time and lowered clear of the house.
Tree pruning
Heavy limbs reduced on tall gums that reach over a roof or a neighbour's fence, keeping as much canopy as the job allows.
Emergency tree removal
Trees brought down or left leaning by storms and heavy rain cut up and cleared from the house and the driveway.
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.
Lorne questions
Permits, a flash flood and the transfer station
Do I need a permit to remove a gum in Lorne?
Significant Landscape Overlay Schedule 4, Lorne Residential Areas, requires a permit to remove, destroy or lop native vegetation wherever it applies, so a native gum on a block it covers usually needs one. The schedule does list exceptions, among them vegetation that is dead or a listed environmental weed, but those belong to its own permit rule and say nothing about other controls on the land, which are looked up before any removal or heavy pruning is quoted.
Can heavy rain loosen a tree on a Lorne slope?
It can. Lorne's sudden flash flood saw an unprecedented 180 mm of rain fall in just six hours, and Surf Coast Shire held a community meeting for people hit by flooding across Lorne, Wye River and surrounds. Saturated soil grips roots less firmly, so after rain like that a tree that has begun to lean, or has lifted or cracked the ground at its base, is worth a look before the next storm.
Where do the branches go after a job in Lorne?
There is a drop-off point in town: the Lorne Transfer Station accepts green waste up to a maximum of 3 cubic metres, though not agapanthus plants and bulbs, and it is closed on Extreme and Catastrophic Fire Danger Rating days. A large removal can produce well over that, so the quote says how the timber and chip will leave the block.
