Tree surgeon vs gardener vs landscaper: who do I need?

If the work is up a tree, or involves a chainsaw on anything substantial, you need a tree surgeon. If it is keeping planting healthy and the garden tidy through the year, you need a gardener. If you are changing the shape of the garden, with paving, walls, levels or turf, you need a landscaper. Hedges, small trees and one-off clearances sit in the overlap, and that is where most people book the wrong trade. None of the three is a protected title, so the question is never "what do you call yourself" but "what are you trained, equipped and insured to do".

What each trade actually does

A tree surgeon, or arborist, works on trees: felling, sectional dismantling over buildings, crown reduction, crown lifting and thinning, pollarding, deadwood removal, storm damage and stump grinding. The distinguishing features are working at height on rope and harness or from a platform, chainsaw use in the tree, and a chipper on the truck. A consulting arboriculturist surveys and reports rather than cuts, and is who you need for a subsidence claim or a planning application (tree roots and house foundations).

A gardener maintains what is already there: mowing, edging, borders, weeding, planting, pruning shrubs and small ornamental trees with hand tools, and keeping a hedge to shape. The best of them will tell you when a job is beyond their kit.

A landscaper builds: patios, paths, drives, walls, decking, fencing, steps, levels, drainage, turfing and planting schemes. Hard landscaping is construction work in a garden, and accreditation exists through the British Association of Landscape Industries and the Association of Professional Landscapers.

A garden clearance crew is a fourth thing, closer to a gardener with a van: cutting overgrowth, pulling brambles and stripping a neglected garden back to bare ground.

The qualification difference

There is no licence to trade as any of the three. What changes is what the law expects of the person holding the tool. For tree work, health and safety law does the job a licence would: anyone using a chainsaw on or in a tree at work is expected to have been trained and to hold a relevant certificate of competence, under the Health and Safety Executive's guidance on chainsaws at work. The certificates come from City & Guilds, still widely called NPTC, or from Lantra Awards, and the units are separate: ground chainsaw use, felling small trees, climbing with aerial rescue, and aerial cutting. Our guide to tree surgeon qualifications sets out which is which.

Climbing also brings in the Work at Height Regulations 2005, which require the job to be planned including rescue. HSE guidance is that there should be at least two people on site for aerial work, with someone on the ground trained and equipped to get a casualty down. A lone climber with no groundsman is the clearest warning sign in the trade.

Gardeners and landscapers have qualifications available to them, from RHS certificates to landscape construction NVQs, but none is legally required and plenty of excellent ones learned on the job. What matters is that they are honest about the boundary: a gardener holding the ground chainsaw ticket can cross-cut a fallen branch, but it does not cover them to climb.

Insurance and waste registration

Public liability. All three trades should carry it, but check the policy covers what they are doing: a general gardening policy often excludes work at height, chainsaw use or tree felling. Ask for the certificate, and check the business name matches the quote and the dates cover the day of work. If the firm has employees, employer's liability is compulsory.

Waste carrier registration. This applies to everyone, and it is the check most people skip. Branches, clippings, turf and old fence panels are waste in law, and a business that takes your waste away must be registered with the Environment Agency. You can check a number on the public register in a couple of minutes. A gardener who bags your clippings and drives off with them needs to be registered exactly as a tree surgeon does, and if waste traced back to your address is fly-tipped you can be fined too. See fly-tipping and the cheap man with a van.

Why a gardener should not be up a tree with a chainsaw

It is not snobbery about tickets. The climber is suspended on rope, at times holding a running chainsaw one-handed, cutting wood whose weight and tension they have to predict, with a drop below them. A cut that goes wrong at ground level is an injury; the same cut at fifteen metres, with no one below trained to rescue, is often fatal. The failures follow the same pattern: a ladder against the trunk instead of a rope system, a branch dropped on a conservatory because nobody rigged it, or a tree "topped" because taking the crown off in one go is quicker (crown reduction vs pollarding vs topping).

The jobs that cross over

Hedges are the big one, and the answer depends on height and intent.

• Keeping a hedge in shape, cut once or twice a year from the ground, is gardening and clearance work. That is hedge trimming, around £10 a metre with a £150 minimum.
• Bringing an overgrown hedge down in height or width, especially a conifer hedge that has reached six metres, is tree work: chainsaws, height access and a lot of waste. That is hedge reduction, £180 upwards.
• Taking a hedge out altogether, roots and all, is tree work with a stump grinder. That is hedge removal, around £70 a metre with a £350 minimum (Leylandii hedge removal).

Whoever cuts it, nesting season applies: read when is it illegal to cut a hedge first.

Small trees. A gardener can reasonably prune a young ornamental from the ground with loppers and a pruning saw. Once it needs a chainsaw, needs climbing, or stands close enough to a building that a branch could hit something, it is tree work.

Clearance. A heavily overgrown garden needs a clearance crew rather than a gardener: the volume of waste and the scale of cutting are different. If there are saplings or stumps, a tree surgeon comes too (how to clear an overgrown garden).

What to ask for on a quote

Whichever trade you book, the quote should be in writing and should say:

• exactly what will be done, in measurements: "reduce height by 2m", "trim 18m of hedge to 1.8m", not "tidy up the trees"
• whether waste, logs, chippings and the stump are included, and whether VAT is included
• the waste carrier registration number, and public liability cover with the certificate attached
• who checks for Tree Preservation Orders and who applies if consent is needed
• for tree work, who is climbing, which certificates they hold, and that there will be a groundsman

If the tree may be protected, sort that out first: do I need permission to cut down a tree and how to check if a tree has a TPO.

How Branch and Bramble splits the two trades

We are an introducer, not a contractor. We run two lanes, and your enquiry goes to one local specialist in the right one.

Tree lane, handled by a vetted tree surgeon, meaning we have seen insurance and NPTC or equivalent certificates and recorded the expiry dates: tree removal, tree felling, crown reduction, pollarding, stump grinding, stump removal, hedge reduction and hedge removal.

Clearance lane, handled by a local clearance specialist: overgrown gardens, bramble clearance, green waste removal, shed removal and hedge trimming.

If a job needs both, tell us on the form. For prices, see the tree removal cost guide or the garden clearance cost guide; anything over £1,200 gets a free survey.