Tree and Hedge Maintenance Record

Who this is for

What has been done to the trees, and what they are. The main table records every cut, lift, reduction and inspection with who did it, how long it took and what it cost; a short register at the foot names each tree and hedge with its species, its position and anything that protects it.

Owners of a garden with mature trees or a long hedge, people who use a contractor and want the work history in their own hands, and anyone selling a property who will be asked what has been done to the big beech.

What this helps you track

• Which trees and hedges there are, where they stand and what they are
• Every job done, dated, with what was actually carried out
• Whether you did it or a contractor did, and which contractor
• Hours spent and money paid, totalled for the sheet
• Whether the arisings were taken away, and when the next visit is planned

How to use it

1. Write the property, the year and the currency at the top.
2. Record each job as it is done in the main table — the date, which tree or hedge, what was carried out and by whom.
3. Fill the register at the foot of the page with each tree and hedge: a name you use for it, the species if you know it, where it stands and any protection or agreement that applies to it.
4. Enter the hours and the cost from the invoice or from your own time; the sheet totals them and works out the summary in the browser and the workbook.
5. Tick waste where the arisings were taken away, and write the next planned date if one was agreed.
6. Keep the finished sheets. A run of them is the history a surveyor, an insurer or a buyer will ask for.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser
• Excel / Google Sheets workbook

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The workbook uses plain formulas only — SUM, IF, COUNTIF and the like — so it opens in Excel, LibreOffice and Google Sheets without anything breaking, and every calculated cell is grey so you can see which figures it worked out.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

Do I need permission to cut a tree?

Possibly, and this sheet cannot tell you. Protections, preservation orders, conservation areas, nesting seasons and boundary rules all differ by country and by council, so check the rules where you are before work starts. The register has a column to write down what applies to each tree.

When should a hedge be cut?

That depends on the species, the climate and the wildlife rules where you live, so no month appears anywhere on this sheet. Write what you were told or what you have decided in the notes and record what you actually did.

Does the cost column include anything of ours?

No. Every figure is one you type from an invoice or your own reckoning. The sheet adds them up and nothing more.

What counts as a job worth recording?

Anything that changed the tree or the hedge, plus inspections. An inspection that found nothing is still worth a dated line, because it proves you looked.

Can I use it for a boundary hedge I share?

Yes. Note in the register who owns which side and who has agreed to what; the cost column then makes a shared bill easy to split.