When a big tree comes down, the felling is often the quick part. What follows is a surprising amount of material: trunk sections, heavy limbs, a heap of branches and leaves, and a stump. A single mature gum produces more tree felling waste than most people imagine, and all of it has to go somewhere. Here is what happens to it on our jobs, and what your options are if you would like to keep some of it.
What happens to tree felling waste on a normal job
Unless you tell us otherwise, our quote includes clearing the site and taking the waste away. Branches, leaves, logs and offcuts are loaded and removed, and the area is raked and swept, so you are not left with sawdust in the lawn or a pile of brush behind the garage. There is no separate bill for the refuse afterwards.
That matters because tree waste is awkward to deal with yourself. It is far too bulky for the wheelie bin and heavy to load, and a brush pile left in the garden dries out over summer and turns into fuel. Our article on trees and fire risk explains why that is worth taking seriously when the south-easter is blowing. Rats and mice like brush piles too.
If you already have garden refuse waiting, or old branches from an earlier job, our garden refuse removal service can take that away on the same visit. Just mention it when we come to quote.
Keeping some of the wood or chips
Plenty of homeowners would rather keep part of the tree. The usual requests are logs for the fireplace or braai and a load of wood chips for the beds. That is no problem: say so at the site visit, so we can plan the job around it and the written quote shows clearly what stays and what goes.
A few practical points help:
- Tell us where you want the wood stacked or the chips tipped, ideally clear of walls and away from the house.
- Be realistic about volume. A large tree gives far more wood than one household burns in a winter, so keep what you will use and let us remove the rest.
- If you want the logs cut to a particular length, raise it at the quote stage so it is agreed upfront rather than assumed on the day.
- Make sure the tree was healthy. Wood from a tree with shot hole borer should not be kept as firewood, for reasons explained below.
Which woods make good firewood
Not every tree makes good fuel. Dense hardwoods burn long and hot, while light or resinous woods burn quickly and leave soot behind. Conveniently, some of the alien trees that cause the most trouble in Cape Town gardens are among the best woods for the fire.
| Wood | As firewood | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Rooikrans | Excellent | Dense and hot, the classic Cape braai wood |
| Black wattle | Very good | Burns well once dry and splits fairly easily |
| Gum (eucalyptus) | Good | Hot fire, but very wet when green, slow to dry and hard to split |
| Pine | Fair | Good kindling, but resinous and sooty as a main fuel |
| Poplar | Poor | Light wood that burns fast with little heat |
A mix works well in practice. Pine offcuts get a fire going, and denser wattle, rooikrans or gum carry it through the evening. Stack them separately so you can grab the right wood at the right stage.
One caution: if you are not sure what a tree is, check before anyone cuts it. Milkwood and real yellowwood are on the national protected trees list, and cutting one needs a licence from the national Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE). A protected tree is never a firewood project.
How long firewood needs to season
Freshly felled wood is full of water. Burn it green and much of its heat goes into boiling that water off: the fire hisses and smokes, and the chimney collects creosote. Plan on roughly six months of seasoning for wattle and rooikrans, and closer to a full year for gum.
That is a good reason to take a firewood tree down in late summer or autumn rather than in June. The wood gets the dry months to start drying out, and you avoid the winter period when storms keep tree crews busy with fallen and damaged trees.
- Split while green. Split the rounds within a few weeks of felling. Green wood splits more easily, and splitting opens the inside to the air.
- Stack off the ground. Use pallets or poles, bark side up, so air can move through the stack.
- Cover the top only. Keep winter rain off the top but leave the sides open. Wrapping a stack in plastic traps moisture and invites rot.
- Keep it away from the house. A free-standing stack in the sun dries faster than one against a wall, and it keeps damp and termites away from the building.
Seasoned wood is grey, cracked at the ends and light for its size. Knock two pieces together and you should hear a sharp clack rather than a dull thud. If they thud, give the pile more time.
Wood chips and mulch
Branches and twigs make up most of the volume of a tree, and chipping shrinks that bulk a great deal. The chips make a useful mulch: a layer on the beds holds moisture through a dry Cape summer and keeps weeds down. If you want them, we can leave a pile for you. If you do not, they leave with the rest of the waste.
Fresh chips work best as a surface mulch on paths and established beds rather than dug into the soil, where they can rob plants of nitrogen while they break down. If you are replanting after a big removal, our landscaping team can work the chips back into the new beds.
Do not spread rough material from rooikrans or Port Jackson that is carrying seed. Their seed stays viable in the soil for years, so seed-bearing brush is better taken away than scattered round the garden.
Wood from trees with shot hole borer
The polyphagous shot hole borer is a tiny beetle that has killed a great many trees across Cape Town and the winelands, including oaks, plane trees and other garden favourites. The beetles live inside the wood and carry on breeding in cut logs and branches, so moving infested wood around as firewood is one of the ways the pest reaches new suburbs.
If your tree is coming down because of shot hole borer, or you suspect it is infested (tiny holes in the bark, often with staining, oozing gum or fine sawdust), do not keep the logs for the fireplace, pass them to neighbours or sell them on. Infested wood should be chipped finely rather than carted around as logs.
If you are not sure whether a tree is affected, an arborist can confirm it. It is a question worth asking in oak-lined areas, and we cover tree felling in Stellenbosch and the rest of the winelands as well as the city.
The stump: the part that stays behind
Felling normally leaves a short stump at ground level. Left in place, it can resprout, particularly gums and Port Jackson, and as it rots it attracts fungi and termites. Grinding takes it down below the surface and turns it into more chips, which can go back in the hole as fill or onto the beds as mulch. Our page on stump grinding and removal explains how it works, and if you ask for it when we quote, it can be done on the same visit as the felling.
If you have a tree coming down and want to know what to keep and what we will take away, WhatsApp a photo to 071 799 1993, or ask for a free site visit and written quote through our contact page.