Pale eucalypt trunks over a dense understorey of tree ferns in Sherbrooke Forest

Tree removal in Silvan

Silvan is mostly farms, and its tree rule is the farm overlay's. A windbreak, an old orchard tree and a blackberry thicket each get a different answer.

We connect you with a local arborist who works in the hills.

Ask for a quote

Sherbrooke Forest. Photo: Patche99z, Public domain

The rule on Silvan's farms

Fourteen of the 25 points we sampled in Silvan were farmland under SLO5, the overlay Yarra Ranges uses for its red-soil farming country. SLO5 needs a council permit for native vegetation of any size, and for any tree with a trunk more than:

1.1 m: around, 1.3 m above the ground. That is a trunk about 35 cm thick. An exotic tree smaller than that is outside SLO5.

Drawn to scale around a 12 m by 9 m house. The dashed ring is a state rule; the solid ring is a council overlay.

4 m: Vegetation whose base is within 4 m of a building is exempt. So are branches over a roof, cut back to 4 m clear.
10 m: The 10/30 rule needs a Bushfire Prone Area. 23 of the 25 points were in one, so check your property report. The conditions.

Dead vegetation, health pruning of up to a third of a plant, and the council's listed environmental weeds are outside SLO5. So are planted windrows and woodlots removed under a property management plan the council has accepted.

Get a free property report from VicPlan to see which overlays cover your block.

Checked 7 October 2026 against Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule 5 to Clause 42.03 (SLO5) and Victoria Planning Provisions, Clause 52.12 (bushfire protection exemptions).

Berries, tulips and blackberry

Silvan was surveyed in 1868 as Wandin Yallock South and renamed in 1913. Its soils suit fruit, vegetables and flowers, and the pick-your-own orchards and berry farms draw visitors, as does the tulip festival, held every spring since 1954. Silvan Reservoir was finished in 1932. The silvanberry, a cultivated hybrid blackberry, is named after the town.

Wild blackberry on a fence line is a different plant in law. It is a declared noxious weed in the Port Phillip and Western Port catchment, so landowners must control it, and no overlay permit is needed to remove it.

Checked 7 October 2026 against Wikipedia: Silvan, Victoria, Agriculture Victoria: blackberry and Victoria Planning Provisions, Clause 42.03 (Significant Landscape Overlay).

Two nurseries with tree controls

Tesselaar's Nursery on Monbulk Road (HO305) and the New Gippsland Seeds and Bulbs site on Queens Road (HO306) are heritage places where tree controls apply. A tree there needs a heritage permit whatever its size, on top of SLO5.

Checked 7 October 2026 against Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule to Clause 43.01 (Heritage Overlay).

The rest of the sample

Eight points were public utility land, under SLO1 and ESO1.
Two points were in the residential streets, under the township overlay SLO22: any tree over 50 cm around, with 2 m exempt. The state's canopy-tree rule can apply there as well, to a tree at least 5 m tall with a canopy 4 m across, near the front or back boundary.
The Bushfire Management Overlay came up at only 12 points. Clearing everything except trees out to 50 m needs a house in that overlay. The 10 m and 30 m distances need only the Bushfire Prone Area.

Checked 7 October 2026 against Wikipedia: Silvan, Victoria, Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule 22 to Clause 42.03 (SLO22), Victoria Planning Provisions, Clause 52.37 (canopy trees) and Victoria Planning Provisions, Clause 52.12 (bushfire protection exemptions).

The rule next door

Monbulk: SLO5 on the farms, like Silvan, and SLO22 in the township.
Olinda: SLO1 at every point, with the same tree terms as SLO5.
Mount Evelyn: Mostly SLO22, at 50 cm around and 2 m from a building.
Macclesfield: SLO6, the rolling-hills farm overlay: SLO5's terms without the regrowth exemption.

Every council is in the permit guide.

Checked 7 October 2026 against Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule 1 to Clause 42.03 (SLO1), Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule 22 to Clause 42.03 (SLO22) and Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule 6 to Clause 42.03 (SLO6).

Ask for a quote

Tell us where you are and what needs doing. We pass it to a local arborist who works in the hills. They ring you back to talk about the job.

Suburb

Anything else? Optional

How tall the tree is, how close to the house, or whether you can get a truck in.

Photos Optional, up to 4

A photo of the whole tree and one of what's around it help with the quote.

Your name

Phone

Your name, number, what you write and your photos reach us by email and go on to a local arborist who works in the hills, and to no one else. We keep a note that a request came in, with the time, the page, the suburb and the job, so we can count them. Privacy.