Yes, and not by a small margin. Tree work is the heaviest, messiest and most destructive stage of any garden project, and doing it after the new work is in is how people end up paying twice.
The right order
| Stage | Why here |
|---|---|
| 1. Tree work | Heaviest kit, biggest mess, worst thing to drag over new work |
| 2. Stump grinding | Ground is open and the machine can reach |
| 3. Hedge work | Boundary reaches final size before anything is set out against it |
| 4. Clearance and levels | Now the site is actually visible |
| 5. Fencing | Posts go in on a clear boundary line |
| 6. Hard landscaping | Paving, walls, decking |
| 7. Turf and planting | Last, so nothing walks over it |
What goes wrong when it is done the other way round
- New paving takes the weight. Chipper, timber and repeated barrow runs across a fresh patio is exactly what it is least able to cope with.
- Turf does not survive it. Fresh turf needs weeks undisturbed. Tree work over the top of it will kill the routes people walk.
- Stumps become inaccessible. Once fencing and beds are in, a grinder may not physically reach the stump — and that can be permanent.
- Falling material breaks things. Even careful sectional work drops the odd piece, and a new greenhouse is a poor place to find out.
- Access disappears. The route the chipper needed is now a planted border.
Decide about the trees before you design the garden
A mature tree is the one thing in a garden you cannot move, cannot replace quickly and may not be allowed to remove. Designing a layout that depends on a tree coming out, and then discovering it cannot, is a genuinely expensive way to start a project.
Cheltenham is worth a specific mention here. The borough has unusually extensive conservation area coverage — the Regency town centre and a large number of the surrounding residential areas — so the odds that a given Cheltenham garden sits inside one are considerably higher than in most towns.
So in Cheltenham this is a real risk rather than a theoretical one. If a tree in a conservation area is in the way, Cheltenham Borough Council needs six weeks' notice — and can respond by making a Tree Preservation Order, at which point the tree stays. Establish that at design stage, not at build stage.
What you save by sequencing it properly
- One set-up, one access arrangement, one waste run instead of two or three.
- No repair bill for damaged new work.
- Stumps out while the ground is still open.
- The boundary at its finished size before anything is set out against it.
- Arisings falling on ground that is about to be dug anyway.
Where the same company handles both stages, the saving is larger again, because the tree work can be planned around what the landscaping needs — where material is stacked, how much of the ground gets disturbed, whether the stump comes out — rather than being finished and handed over.
Protecting the trees you are keeping
The other half of this, and the half that gets ignored. Trees are damaged by landscaping far more often than by storms, and almost always through the roots rather than the branches.
- Most of a tree's roots are in the top 60cm of soil and spread well beyond the canopy.
- Raising the soil level over roots suffocates them, sometimes fatally, and the tree may not show it for years.
- Trenching for services through the root zone cuts anchoring roots.
- Heavy machinery compacts the soil, which does the same damage more slowly.
Keeping plant and stored materials off the root zone during the build costs nothing and is the single most effective thing you can do for a tree you intend to keep.
Planning a garden project?
Tell us what's going in and what trees are in the way. We handle the tree work and the landscaping, so it can be planned as one job.
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