Are these your own photos?

Yes. Every photo on this page is one of Peter's own job photos from African Tree Fellers, the crew who do the work. We haven't used a single stock image — you're looking at the actual team, the actual kit and the actual trees.

Why aren't the suburbs listed under each photo?

Because we'd rather say nothing than say something we can't stand behind. These photos were taken across Cape Town over several years and we haven't got a reliable record of the address for each one, so we describe what's in the picture instead of guessing at a location.

Can I see a job like mine before I book?

Send us a photo of your tree on WhatsApp and we'll tell you straight whether we've done that job before and how we'd approach it. Most of the time we can give you a ballpark from the photo and then confirm it properly on site.

Do you always work off ropes rather than a cherry picker?

For most Cape Town gardens, yes. Plots here are tight, driveways are narrow and a lot of properties simply can't take a machine — so climbing and rigging is what gets the tree out without wrecking the garden to get to it.

OUR OWN JOB PHOTOS — NO STOCK IMAGES

Our work, honestly photographed

Every picture below was taken by Peter's crew on a real Cape Town job — palms coming down between houses, climbers at the top of tall pines, stumps being cut out against boundary walls. We haven't dressed any of it up, and we haven't bought a single stock photo. If you want to know what our tree services actually look like on site, this is it.

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Tree feller in a safety harness standing on top of a stripped palm trunk with a chainsaw, between two suburban houses — Topping out a stripped palm trunk. Once the fronds are off, the trunk comes down in short sections so nothing swings over the houses either side.

Worker rope-climbing a tall Canary palm to trim and clean the crown, shot from below against a blue sky — Rope-climbing a Canary palm to clean the crown. No cherry picker, no damage to the garden below — just rope, spikes and a harness.

Climber at the top of a large conifer with felled branches piled in the yard below — At the top of a large conifer with the brush already down. Sectional take-down from the top is how you remove a big tree in a garden without flattening it.

Large tree being felled in sections, trunk stripped of branches with cut brush and refuse bags across the garden — Trunk stripped and being sectioned down. Everything gets bagged and hauled — the site goes back to the owner clean, not covered in brush.

Worker kneeling to cut through a large stump at ground level with a chainsaw in a terraced garden — Taking a big stump down to ground level before grinding. Cutting it flush first means the grinder only has to deal with what's below the surface.

Worker levering and digging out a root ball beside a freshly cut stump against a concrete boundary wall — Digging out a root ball tight against a boundary wall. Where a grinder can't reach the wall line, the roots come out by hand.

Very tall pine with a climber near the top on ropes, suburban houses behind — A climber near the top of a very tall pine. This is the height most storm-damage and big-pine work happens at.

Tree feller standing atop a tall stripped palm trunk holding a chainsaw aloft in full harness — Full harness, spikes and a chainsaw at the top of a palm trunk. Nothing about this job is done from a ladder.

Worker beside a partly-felled palm trunk showing a clear notch cut, with fronds and debris around the base — The notch cut on a palm trunk, street side. The notch decides exactly which way the trunk goes — that's the whole job on a tight verge.

Worker pointing a chainsaw at a notched palm trunk on a street verge with fronds piled at the base — Fronds stripped and piled, trunk notched and ready. Street-side palm work needs the pavement kept clear the whole time.

Worker beside a notched palm trunk mid-removal with debris around the base on a suburban street — Mid-removal on a suburban street. The trunk comes down in lengths short enough to carry straight onto the truck.

Freshly cut tree stump cross-section with the name PETER carved into the wood — Peter's signature, cut into a fresh stump. He's been leaving this on finished jobs around Cape Town for years.

A note on these photos

Why we don't put a suburb under each one

You'll see other Cape Town tree sites captioning every photo with a suburb — "oak felling in Rondebosch", that sort of thing. We could do the same, but these pictures were taken across the city over several years and we don't have a reliable record of which address each one belongs to. Rather than invent it, we've described what's actually happening in the frame.

What the photos do show is the range: palm work at height, sectional take-downs on big conifers, stump cutting and root digging by hand where a machine can't reach. That's the bulk of what we do. The detail of how each of those runs is on the palm removal, tree felling and stump grinding pages.

If you're trying to work out whether your tree is a prune or a removal, the difference between felling and pruning is worth five minutes before you call anyone. And if you'd rather just check we cover you, the full list of suburbs we work in is one click away.

About these photos

The questions people ask when they land on this page.

Want your tree to look like the "after" shot?

Send a photo of what you're dealing with and we'll come out for a free on-site look — honest fixed price in writing, full clean-up included.