Altona Meadows was built as a new estate, but the gardens have had thirty-odd years to grow up since. Ross takes away the hedge trimmings, natives and overgrown shrubs once they've been cut back.
Not a franchisee or a truck driver from a booking system. The bloke who quotes it is the bloke who loads it.
No bags to fill, no skip to load. Leave it in a pile and he loads it, sweeps up and takes it away.
Not a bin size. A heap beside the driveway and one at the bottom of a steep yard are different jobs and get different prices.
Standing tree, asbestos, or more rubbish than garden — he tells you before he starts, not after.
A pruning pile hauled away and a few bags of leaf litter collected is the usual combination on a Altona Meadows block.
Piles of prunings, branches, hedge trimmings, leaves and weeds that won't fit in the green bin. Ross backs the trailer in, loads it himself and takes it away to be recycled — you don't lift a thing.
Grown-out estate hedges and natives.
Doing a big garden clean-up — overgrown beds, a back corner nobody has touched in years, a rental between tenants or a property being tidied for sale? Pile it all up and Ross collects the lot in one visit.
Courts and crescents tidied before sale.
Fallen limbs, shed bark, leaf litter and dry prunings gathered up from around the house — the fine fuel that matters most in a grassfire or ember attack. Collected and taken away before the Fire Danger Period starts.
Dry litter cleared from fences and sheds.
A gum has dropped a limb across the driveway, or a windy night has left the yard covered. Ross collects what's come down and hauls it away. Standing trees and hung-up limbs are an arborist's job — once they've dropped it, Ross can take it away.
Branches from street and garden trees.
Altona Meadows is mostly 1980s and 1990s housing: brick veneer homes on courts and curving streets, with front gardens that were planted with natives, hedges and a few feature trees when the estate was new.
Those plantings are now fully grown. Bottlebrush that used to be waist-high is over the roofline, hedges have spread and a lot of back yards have a big eucalypt or two. It means a lot more garden waste than the original owners ever had to deal with, and a green bin that fills after the first hour of pruning.
The natives that went in when Altona Meadows was built were chosen because they grow fast and handle the conditions. They did exactly that. Now many of them need cutting back hard, or removing altogether, to stop them taking over the yard.
Ross does the carting, and a single visit can clear what would take months of fortnightly bins.
Most homes in Altona Meadows have a driveway and a side gate, which makes loading straightforward. Courts can be a little tight for a trailer, but there is almost always room to work.
Where the green waste is in the back yard, it gets carried or barrowed out along the side of the house. The driveway and paths are swept when the job is finished.
Plenty of original owners are now selling or renting out their Altona Meadows homes. A tired, overgrown garden is one of the first things buyers and tenants notice.
Ross can get the yard back to a clean, tidy state quickly: old piles, hedge trimmings and garden waste loaded and gone, ready for photos or a new tenant.
Native shrubs drop a lot of dry leaf and bark through the warmer months, and it builds up against fences and sheds. A clean-up in spring means less mess over summer and a yard that is easier to keep on top of.
Suburb, roughly how much there is, and what the access is like. A photo saves a lot of back and forth.
Ross comes back with a number. On big or awkward jobs he has a look first rather than guessing.
Loaded by hand, driveway swept, and off for proper green waste disposal.
Ross runs this on his own. He quotes the job, he turns up, he loads the trailer and he takes it away — the same bloke every visit. There is no office in between, no skip company, and no franchise cut coming out of what you pay.
It also means he will tell you when something isn't his job — a standing tree that needs an arborist, or a pile that is more rubbish than garden — rather than taking the money and leaving you with half a problem.
The suburb, roughly how much there is, and how easy it is to get a trailer to it is enough to work with. A photo of the pile gets you a price fastest.
Prefer to talk? Call or text Ross on 0416 030 925. Monday to Saturday, daylight hours — weather permitting.
Get a price on your pile. Takes a minute — Ross reads them himself.
Thanks — that's gone through to Ross. Spring is his busiest time, so if it's close to fire season he may take a day or two.
