Balwyn's deep front gardens and landscaped yards produce a lot of cuttings. Ross takes them away so the bin can go back to handling the lawn clippings.
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 Balwyn 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.
Landscaped gardens and deep front yards.
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.
Clearing old gardens before a rebuild or 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 leaf litter and dead shrubs cleared out.
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.
Storm-dropped limbs from mature trees.
Balwyn sits high on the ridge along Whitehorse Road and has some of the most carefully kept gardens in the eastern suburbs. Blocks are generous, front setbacks are deep, and plenty of homes have manicured hedges, feature trees and lawns that someone looks after every week.
Well-kept gardens still make waste — arguably more of it, because they're cut back more often. The green bin rarely copes with a full hedge trim or a landscaper's worth of offcuts. Ross picks up the bulk green waste, loads it himself and takes it to be mulched.
Balwyn has seen a lot of rebuilding. Older brick homes come down and larger new houses go up, often with a fresh garden planted around them. Before the builder starts, the old garden usually needs clearing.
Once the mature shrubs, hedges and garden beds have been pulled out or cut back, Ross loads the lot and takes it away before demolition or landscaping. He takes the green material only — anything from the house itself needs to go with the builder's waste.
The gardens that look the best take the most maintenance. Hedges clipped a few times a year, roses pruned in winter, perennials cut down in autumn and leaves raked up across several months all add up.
Some owners book a pickup after each big session. Others save it for two or three bigger collections a year. Either works, and there's no lock-in.
Balwyn's older trees can drop sizeable branches in a strong wind. If one has landed in the front garden or across the drive, Ross will load it and take it away. If it's too heavy to lift, send a photo and he'll say whether he can take it.
Anything still attached to the tree, or a tree that looks unstable, needs an arborist. Boroondara protects a lot of trees, so check with the council before anything is removed.
Balwyn's leaf fall peaks in May and the bins are full across the suburb for weeks. Get the pruning pile gone in March or April and you'll have room for the leaves when they come.
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.
