Tree removal in Seaford: what's local
Dunes along the whole suburb
The foreshore reserve runs the length of Seaford between the beach and the Nepean Highway. Frankston council calls it the finest Coast Banksia Woodland in Melbourne, with Coast Banksia and Coast Beard Heath on the secondary dunes. It's public reserve, so those trees aren't yours to trim for a view.
A swamp under the lawns
Much of Seaford was once the Karrum Karrum (Carrum Carrum) swamp, drained for farming in the early twentieth century. The suburb mostly went up in the 1950s and 1960s, so backyard plantings from that era have had up to seventy years to get big.
Kananook Creek
The creek runs behind the dunes towards Frankston. Council lists Coast Banksias, Sheoaks and Swamp Gums as its common trees, with Swamp Paperbark thick on the floodplain.
Very old red gums at the wetlands
The woodland around the Seaford Wetlands has River Red Gums about 300 years old, which council says are very rare in the Frankston area. The wetlands are Ramsar-listed, the international treaty status for wetlands of global importance.
Tree removal permits in Seaford
Coast Tea-tree is a native plant, but Frankston council treats it as an environmental weed once it spreads inland away from the coast. Left alone in a Seaford yard it can thicken into a dense, tangled screen.
Thinning or clearing a thicket is a reasonable thing to want. Still ask council before the big stems go, because a plant being called a weed in one document doesn't settle every permit question. Frankston's tree permit rules cover trunks of 110 cm or more around at the base where no planning control applies, and the state's canopy tree rule can catch a tree near your front or back boundary.
Tree jobs you can do yourself in Seaford
You can
- Trim tea-tree regrowth and small banksia branches you can reach with both feet on the ground, using secateurs, loppers or a pruning saw.
- Rake and bag fallen banksia cones and leaf litter.
- Photograph a tree that's started to lean in soft ground, so council and the arborist can see what changed.
Leave to an arborist
- Any removal once council has said which permit, if any, is needed.
- Anything growing near the service line from the pole to the house.
- Stump grinding, after underground pipes and cables have been located through a Before You Dig Australia enquiry.
Hiring an arborist in Seaford
We'd ask Frankston for written advice first, then get an arborist to say which trees are worth keeping. Banksias and sheoaks belong in this coastal ground, and a planned prune is often a better answer than a removal that needs a permit.