Range country, not coastal country
Maleny is a genuinely different working environment to anywhere on the coastal strip. Around 450 metres of elevation, deep red basalt soil, high rainfall, cool nights and frequent cloud sitting on the escarpment.
Trees respond accordingly. Flooded gums, tallowwood, hoop pine and above all figs reach sizes that are hard to appreciate from a photograph. A mature strangler fig on a Maleny property can carry a crown 25 metres across with buttress roots running further than that, and taking one down is a multi-day job with a rigging setup rather than a morning's work.
Slope
The other constant is the ground. Most of the range falls away sharply, and slope changes tree behaviour in ways that matter.
Failure direction on a slope is downhill, not downwind. Root anchorage on the uphill side does less than it appears to. And after the range's regular heavy rain the clay-rich basalt soil becomes greasy, which is when trees that had stood for decades go over.
For the crew, slope means machinery is limited or excluded, sections are lowered under control on every cut, and material is winched or barrowed uphill to a chipper on the driveway.
Rainforest remnants
The Blackall Range carries important remnant subtropical rainforest - the country that Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve preserves a fragment of. A lot of Maleny acreage carries remnant or regrowth that is mapped under overlays.
The assumption on any native tree within remnant vegetation should be that removal is assessable. Where the tree is a genuine hazard, an arborist report documenting the defect is what supports the application. Where it is simply large, the answer is generally no, and that is worth knowing before hiring anyone.
Camphor laurel
The offsetting job. Camphor laurel grew enormously well on this soil and is now a declared environmental weed through the range. Mature camphors here are huge, they suppress rainforest regeneration underneath them, and removing one is usually far simpler regulatorily than removing a native of the same size.
Stumps must be ground deep or excavated. A shaved camphor stump suckers for years.
Acreage logistics
Most Maleny work is on acreage, which cuts both ways. There is room to drop material and room for a chipper, but the trees are enormous and the driveways are long, steep and often unsealed.
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Frequently asked questions
Why are Maleny trees so much bigger than coastal ones?
Elevation, rainfall and soil. Maleny sits around 450 metres on deep red basalt with well over 1,500mm of annual rainfall, which is close to ideal growing country. A fig or flooded gum here will reach a size that the same species on sandy coastal soil never approaches, and the removals are priced accordingly.
Can machinery get onto a steep Maleny block?
It depends on the fall. Plenty of Blackall Range properties drop away too sharply for a tracked machine to traverse safely, especially after rain when the basalt clay gets greasy. On those blocks the work is climbing and rigging, material is winched uphill, and the job is quoted on hours rather than tree size.
Is remnant rainforest on my property protected?
Very likely. The Blackall Range carries significant remnant subtropical rainforest, much of it mapped under planning scheme overlays and some under state vegetation mapping as well. Clearing or substantially pruning within it is assessable, and enforcement in this area is taken seriously.