Quietly cutting bloke's tree (5)
I believe the answer is:
maple
'tree' is the definition.
(maple is a kind of tree)
'quietly cutting bloke's' is the wordplay.
'quietly' becomes 'p' (p for piano and quiet).
'cutting' means one lot of letters goes inside another (some letters cut their way into a word).
'bloke' becomes 'male' (bloke means a man).
'p' going into 'male' is 'MAPLE'.
(Other definitions for maple that I've seen before include "Its leaf is the emblem of 8 down" , "Cathedral city in Devon" , "Tree associated with Canada" , "Tree with winged fruits" , "Tree; sugar from it" .)