Taking the dead wood out: safer tree, healthier tree.

Why deadwood

• Falling risk. Dead branches shed on their own; the only question is whether they land on a path, a car, a shed roof, or a person. Big garden sycamores and holm oaks in Gravesend are the usual culprits, a 4-metre dead limb at 8 metres up is a serious impact if it drops, and winter gales accelerate the timetable.
• Disease pathway. Dead wood in the canopy is an entry point for fungi and pathogens back into the live tree. Removing dead limbs promptly closes those pathways.
• Insurance. Most household insurers expect reasonable arboricultural maintenance of trees overhanging property. Documented deadwooding is what "reasonable" looks like.

What I don't take

I deadwood conservatively. Small dead twigs deep in the interior of the canopy that pose no fall risk are habitat for insects, fungi and hole-nesting birds, and on Gravesend garden plots that habitat still matters. What comes off is the material that has real weight, real height, or real disease propagation, nothing else. If a customer wants an over-aggressive clean-out, I push back; that's not deadwooding, that's aesthetic thinning, and there's a name for the honest version of that: crown thinning.

Frequency

Most mature garden trees in Gravesend do well with a deadwood on a 2–4 year cycle. Species that shed heavily (sycamore, lime, London plane) at the tighter end; slower species (holm oak, yew, hawthorn) at the wider end. Riverside wind exposure moves the cycle a touch tighter, dead branches on a riverside tree don't hang on as politely as they do inland.

Special case: ash dieback (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus)

Ash dieback is well-established across east Kent, including in the mature hedgerows and shelter-belts around Northfleet and out towards Shorne. An ash tree with dieback needs an honest assessment before any work, brittle wood, unpredictable failure points, and no benefit to the tree from repeated deadwooding once dieback is beyond a certain stage. In advanced cases deadwooding is no longer the right job, and I will say so. I flag it, I don't hide it.

Pricing

Single-tree deadwood in Gravesend typically runs £180 – £550. Combined with an annual or two-yearly hedge cut at the same address, I discount 10% off the deadwooding side, the vehicle is already there. Fixed price after seeing photos.

Before I cut

Removing dead branches from a living tree does not need a section 211 notice or TPO consent, but dying or diseased wood is not covered by that exemption, so I still check for TPOs and conservation-area status first, and I photograph before-and-after for insurance evidence.