A suburb that aged all at once
Canning Vale was built out largely between the late 1980s and the early 2000s: project homes, wide estate streets, generous street-tree planting and back gardens landscaped the year the house was finished. That produces a specific pattern of tree work, because the entire suburb's canopy reaches maturity at roughly the same time.
The result is streets where every second house needs the same job in the same couple of years — a crown lift off the roofline, a deadwood, a reduction on the limb over the driveway, and the removal of whatever was planted a metre inside a boundary fence in 1994.
The trees that were planted
Lemon-scented gums. Very common here, in gardens and as street trees. They are now large enough to matter, and they are the main source of summer limb-drop callouts in this part of the council. Long horizontal limbs over driveways, pools and parked cars are the ones worth reducing before the heat.
Queensland box, jacaranda and Cape lilac. The standard suburban planting palette of the era. Jacaranda and Cape lilac both drop heavily onto paving and into pool filters, which is where the seed and fruit removal work comes from.
Marri and native plantings. In the parts closer to the remnant bushland pockets and along the drainage reserves.
Boundary screens gone wrong. Photinias, oleanders and the occasional eucalypt planted as a screen and now three times the intended size, half over the fence.
Solar, eaves and roofs
Two things came to these houses after the trees were planted: solar arrays and larger extensions. Panels went up when the gum on the northern side was still small, and a mature canopy now cuts afternoon generation. A crown lift or a targeted reduction usually fixes it without losing the tree.
The same applies to eaves and gutters. Estate homes here have shallow eaves and a lot of tile, and branch contact means litter in the gutters and a highway for rats and possums into the roof space.
Ground work
Bassendean sand — inland grey sand, no limestone, no clay. This is the easiest ground in the metro area for stump grinding and for full root-plate extraction when a patio slab or a pool is going in. It is also ground that settles noticeably after backfilling, so leave a ground stump hole proud rather than turfing it flat the same week.
Access is generally straightforward: wide streets, driveways, standard side gates. Battleaxe subdivisions are the exception, and rear access on those is often a 900mm handle and nothing else.
Nearby
Gosnells shares the eastern boundary and some of the same estate history, and Cockburn sits west across the freeway. The full list is on the service areas page, with quote factors in the cost guide.
Call (08) 9516 2804 for a free onsite quote.
Frequently asked questions
Which council is Canning Vale in?
The City of Canning covers most of Canning Vale, with the City of Gosnells taking parts of the southern and eastern edge — the boundary runs through the suburb, so check which side of it your address falls on. Western Australia has no statewide tree preservation order, so the local government sets the rules for private trees.
Why do so many Canning Vale trees need work at once?
Because the estates were built and landscaped over a compressed period, mostly through the late 1980s and 1990s, and everything was planted at the same time. Thirty years later the whole suburb's canopy hits maturity together. That is why entire streets need the same reduction and deadwooding work in the same few years.
Will pruning help my solar output?
Often substantially. Panels went onto a lot of these roofs while the trees were still small, and a maturing gum or jacaranda on the northern side can cut generation badly by mid-afternoon. A crown lift or a targeted reduction usually recovers most of it without removing the tree or the shade over the house.
Is the soil here easy to work?
Yes. Canning Vale sits on the Bassendean sand of the inland coastal plain, which is about the easiest ground in the metro area for stump grinding and root extraction. There is no limestone caprock as there is nearer the coast and no clay as there is up on the scarp.