Croydon has everything from 1950s weatherboards to new townhouses, and nearly all of them have a garden that outgrows the green bin. Ross clears the overflow.
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 Croydon 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.
Hedges and prunings from Croydon family homes.
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.
Rentals and weatherboard yards gone wild.
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 prunings and dead growth moved before summer.
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 debris loaded up and taken off the lawn.
Croydon grew up around the railway and Main Street, and it still has that country-town-turned-suburb feel. There are older weatherboards and brick homes on big blocks near the centre, post-war and 1970s family houses further out, and a growing number of units and townhouses on subdivided lots. Tarralla Creek winds through the suburb, and the Dandenongs are always on the horizon.
Across all of that, the common thread is gardens that produce more than the council bin can take. Hedges along front fences, fruit trees that need a yearly prune, and deciduous trees that bury the lawn every autumn. When there's a genuine pile of it, a green waste pickup is quicker and cleaner than a string of trailer trips of your own.
The older homes close to the Croydon shops often sit on long, deep blocks with established trees, sheds and outbuildings. Those gardens have usually been through several owners and each one has added plants without taking many out.
Getting the green waste out of one of these is a big job but a satisfying one. Ross loads the trailer by hand, takes the lot away and leaves the yard swept, ready for whatever you plan to do with it next.
Newer Croydon townhouses come with smaller gardens, but they are often planted tightly with screening hedges to give some privacy from the neighbours. Keep those hedges trimmed and the offcuts add up quickly — too much for a small green bin shared between units.
Ross is happy to do a small job. A few bags of hedge trimmings or a courtyard's worth of prunings is still worth booking if it saves you filling the car.
There are a lot of rental properties in Croydon, and gardens tend to be the first thing that slips between tenants. Landlords and property managers call for a clean-up before a new lease starts, or when the agent flags the yard at a routine inspection.
A single visit is usually enough to clear the accumulated garden waste. If it helps, Ross can deal directly with the property manager on access and timing.
The deciduous trees in Croydon gardens and streets let go in autumn, and it's also when people get the last big prune done before winter. Book early in April and the leaves and prunings are gone before the rain sets in and makes everything heavier to shift.
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.
