After leaving his old career behind to become a qualified tree surgeon, Tim Hill founded Wiltshire-based TwentyEight Trees – and he hasn’t looked back.
MAKING TV commercials for a world-famous beer company was a great job for graphic designer Tim Hill. The perks were certainly all there. But then, something far better came along ... being a tree surgeon.
He explained: “It just came naturally to me and fitted exactly into my life. It clicked because I could combine my hobby – simply being with trees – and my work. It was just that simple.
“Being a designer just wasn’t for me. There was no passion in it, whereas nowadays the passion is there all the time.”
Having fully qualified and now running his own tree-care firm in Wiltshire, Tim loves dealing with magnificent giants like veteran oaks and eucalyptus.
“Ask me to tackle those and I’ve got stars in my eyes,” he said. “For a start, I love climbing and kite surfing. Having that sort of activity and being out in the countryside makes tree surgery a perfect fit for me. I just love going up in the world.”
His qualification as a tree surgeon also inspired the unusual name for his firm, TwentyEight Trees. He explained: “It was formed on my 28th birthday, so I thought I’d make use of that.”
He’s also sure that deciding never to take on jobs he might not be able to cope with stood him in good stead and helped him to develop new skills as larger jobs came along. “That way I didn’t let anybody down,” he said. “Word got around and jobs started to come in, so it’s something I’d recommend to anyone starting out.”
Since starting out he has added a groundsman and another climber to his firm, which allows him to cope with an increasingly variable list of jobs – anything from pruning fruit trees to tackling veteran oaks.
And while he enjoys that variety, there is one single hated nuisance – hitting nails so often embedded in the bark of species such as leylandii. Tim said: “That’s when you hear the bad language, because it dulls the blade and you’ve got to spend half an hour getting it right again. And there’s not a lot you can do to avoid it, because the wood is sappy and the metal gets buried in it. I really hate those days.”
One recent switch Tim has made has been to battery-operated saws, mostly Stihl. He said: “They’re brilliant and so quiet. You don’t have to be starting them up all the time and you can use them very early in the morning without disturbing anyone. You don’t have to live with all that vibration all the time, which has to be good for you, and you get rid of all that stuff like oil and pollution.
“I know a lot of people are nervous about switching over because they think they’ll be weak, but the ones I’ve got now are equal to my previous 40 cc one.”
Looking to the future, one of Tim’s aims is to qualify as a tree surveyor to expand the amount of potential work, but at the same time preserving his work-life balance. And, he’s sure, there could soon be room for another member of staff. In the meantime, he’s put his previous job as an animator to good use by illustrating on his website the techniques for dealing with canopy reduction.
He said: “It helps people to see what they’ll get for their money. And it also might convince more people to come to me if they know what it’s all about.”
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