Too often we hear and read of helo removals but this one has a twist.
In Melbourne a guy had an advanced tree helicoptered into his place for planting ... to replace a tree the new back neighbour lopped down to 2.5m high on his property.
Tree lover brings out the chopper | Herald Sun Quote:
September 05, 2008 12:00am
A NEIGHBOURHOOD battle reached new heights yesterday when a Hawthorn resident paid $8000 to have a tree flown into his back yard by helicopter.
And Graeme Alderman plans to send the bill to the bloke over the back fence.
He says his neighbour cut down his old tree.
The extraordinary suburban confrontation produced a Melbourne first yesterday.
"It was pretty special. We hadn't organised a helicopter tree drop before," said project co-ordinator Ben Scoble, of Speciality Trees.
"It was a lot of organising but . . . the client was happy and it looks great.
"I never thought I'd be delivering trees by helicopter."
The 4.5m weeping lilly pilly cost $3000 to buy, $4000 to fly and $1000 to plant.
It will fill a gaping hole left by an allegedly overzealous new man on the block.
Mr Alderman said that the neighbour took the liberty of pruning the original 10.5m lilly pilly he planted 25 years ago down to a leafless 2.5m stump.
"I came home one day and all of a sudden I was aware people could see me," said Mr Alderman, 64, who has lived in his Widford St home for 28 years.
"I was shocked. The privacy I thought I had disappeared. I couldn't believe somebody could step on to the property and cut it down."
Mr Alderman said he hadn't even met his new neighbour at the time.
"He couldn't possibly have thought it was his. It was about 1.8m-2m into my block.
"And when you get to my age and you've had a tree for over 20 years, you like privacy and want as much privacy as possible. It becomes a little annoying for 20 years of growth being removed in a couple of hours."
Mr Alderman said he made many attempts over the past nine months to communicate with his new neighbour before he took matters into his own hands.
Not wanting to wait 25 years to regain his privacy, Mr Alderman called in Speciality Trees to deliver an established tree.
The new tree was too big to squeeze into Mr Alderman's back yard through the narrow side access.
So Mr Scoble tracked down the Professional Helicopter Company to handle the tricky delivery directly into Mr Alderman's back yard.
The new tree, although half the size, will take up to 10 years to fill the gap.
The wife of the neighbour, whose property faces Neave St, Hawthorn East, refused to comment yesterday and said the matter was in the hands of lawyers.
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7th September 2008, 10:35 PM
Helicopter tree planting 
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