Local conditions
Gympie's position on the Mary River shapes the tree work the town needs. The February 2022 flood peaked at 22.96 metres on the Gympie gauge, the second highest reading on record behind the 25.45 metre peak of 1893. Water at that height saturates root zones for days, and trees that stood through it can carry root plate damage that only shows up later as lean, lifting soil, or sudden failure in the next big wind.
Summer storms add the other half of the problem. The region's storm season brings sudden wind loads onto trees that have already been softened by wet ground, and the limbs that come down are the ones that were structurally compromised long before the storm arrived.
Older residential Gympie carries a lot of planted exotics alongside the natives. Camphor laurel in particular grows fast, gets heavy, and holds decay in the trunk unions where it cannot be seen from the ground. A tree can look full and healthy in leaf and still be structurally unsound where it matters.