Tree protection and felling seasons in Germany

The statutory text contains a distinction that is regularly flattened in client conversations. The restriction on trees applies to those standing outside forests, short-rotation plantations or horticulturally used land (BNatSchG sec. 39). A domestic garden is horticulturally used land. The cherry tree in a tended domestic garden therefore falls outside the closed season of subsection 5. For hedges, living fences, shrubbery and other woody growth the same sentence contains no such carve-out — they are covered even when they stand in that same garden.

That makes the blanket answer anything is allowed in a private garden untenable in professional terms. Anyone giving it will struggle at the first query from the nature conservation authority. Conversely the opposite answer is wrong too, namely that nothing at all may be cut in a garden between March and September. Both sentences are convenient, both are inaccurate, and both cost the business credibility as soon as a client reads up on it.

What counts as horticulturally used land is not always clear-cut. Regularly tended land connected to a dwelling generally qualifies. A plot left to itself for years, an abandoned orchard or a boundary strip with grown-in woody vegetation generally does not. The nature conservation acts of the federal states may add further detail. In case of doubt a short call to the lower nature conservation authority of the district or city is the cheapest option — it takes a few minutes and can be noted in the project file with the date and the name of the contact (project experience).

The act recognises several constellations in which work within the protected period is permitted (BNatSchG sec. 39). They include measures ordered or approved by an authority, measures in the public interest that cannot be carried out in another way or at another time, measures for the upkeep of watercourses, and interventions and projects already approved under the relevant rules. What these cases have in common is that an authority is involved or an approval exists — the business's own assessment does not replace that.

The practically most important case is traffic safety. A tree with a broken major limb over a footpath, a lifted root plate after a storm, fungal decay with visibly reduced stability: in such cases work may come into consideration in summer as well. Its extent has to stay limited to what removes the hazard. Felling a whole tree where removing one branch would have sufficed is not a safety measure but a felling with a reason added afterwards.

The documentation decides how robust that reason turns out to be later. Photographs from several directions before the intervention, a dated note on the findings, the names of those involved and, where possible, brief notice to the competent authority before starting. Where the hazard is acute, averting it comes first and the notification follows immediately afterwards. A business that has stored this routine as a template once needs a few minutes for it on site (project experience).

The closed season under section 39 ends on 30 September. Species protection under section 44 BNatSchG does not end. Among other things it prohibits catching, injuring or killing wild animals of specially protected species and damaging or destroying their breeding and resting sites (BNatSchG sec. 44). All bird species native to Europe count as specially protected. Bats do too, and their roosts in tree cavities and crevices remain protected even when they appear unoccupied at the moment of inspection.

For the business that means a second check that has nothing to do with the calendar. Before felling an older tree, a look at cavities, crevices, nest boxes, eyries and woodpecker holes belongs in the routine. Regularly reused nests of larger bird species are protected all year round, even when they look empty in winter. Where there is uncertainty, obtain a professional assessment before the saw is started — in case of doubt through the lower nature conservation authority, which can be approached on such questions.

In practice a simple routine has proven itself: visual check with binoculars from the ground, inspection from the platform or by rope access where there is any suspicion, a short note with date, time and findings, one photograph of the crown. That is not an expert report, but it shows that the business met its duty of care. For businesses offering tree care as a trade of its own, this routine belongs on the tree care service page, because it makes their way of working visible against competitors who do not document it.

The hardest part of this subject is not the legal position but the conversation. A client calling in May first hears a refusal. Whether that turns into a lost job or a job scheduled for October is decided in the first two sentences. Starting with what is possible and only then naming the restriction has proven itself — the same facts in substance, a different effect.

It also helps not to present the rule as the company's opinion. Saying that you do not do that in summer as a matter of policy sounds like an excuse or like a full order book. Naming the period and the source moves the discussion away from the business and onto the facts. The client can read it up, and many do. The most frequent reaction is not annoyance but the question whether the date could be fixed for October right away (project experience).

A third point concerns the alternative. Almost every summer enquiry contains a share that can be carried out at once: the shaping cut instead of the clearance, removing the damaged branch instead of felling, the planting plan for the autumn. Naming that share keeps the contact alive and provides a reason for the site visit. The main work does not become smaller, it merely moves into the period in which it is permitted.

Queries about tree work rarely arrive at once. They come from a neighbour, from the authority or from the owner, and they come weeks or months later. A business that can then show within two minutes when the visual check took place, which decision was in hand and what extent of work was carried out is out of the discussion before it starts. A business that has to search loses time and arguments.

The effort is small when the filing scheme exists before the first job rather than after the first incident. One folder per job, fixed file names, everything filed on the same day. On site the phone is enough: photograph, voice note, both into the project folder. The sorting is done in the office.

How long the documents have to be kept follows the general commercial and tax rules for project records; conservation evidence, however, does not lose its value when a retention period expires. Replacement plantings can carry establishment obligations running over several years, and a decision ordering a replanting has a correspondingly long reach. There is therefore little reason to weed such documents out early.

Once this routine is set up, the difference shows above all in spring. The question are we allowed to do this now? is then no longer debated on site but already answered at the quotation stage — with a date, a decision or a properly reasoned postponement.