Tree surgery and landscaping in Portsmouth

Most of Portsmouth sits on Portsea Island, and it is one of the most densely built cities in the country. That shapes the work more than anything else: Victorian and Edwardian terraces in Southsea, Fratton, North End and Copnor, long thin gardens behind them, and access that is often a side gate or straight through the house. We plan for that from the start, dismantling trees in sections and carrying out by hand where a chipper cannot get near.

The ground is flat and low, only a few metres above the sea, so gardens here hold water in winter and the salt wind off the Solent gets into everything along the seafront. For fences that means concrete posts and closeboard on the exposed runs, and for planting it means choosing what will put up with the spray.

North of the water the city climbs onto Portsdown Hill. Cosham, Drayton, Farlington and Paulsgrove sit on the chalk slope with bigger plots, more mature trees and the same questions about driveways and front gardens you get anywhere the houses are older. The M27 and M275 put us there in about forty minutes.