Fitzroy North has bigger terrace gardens than most of the inner city and plenty of big trees overhead. Ross clears the leaves, climbers and prunings that pile up behind the house.
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 Fitzroy North 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.
Climbers, prunings and deciduous leaf drop.
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.
Clean-up waste from overgrown terrace yards, collected.
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 leaves and dead growth out of corners.
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.
Limbs from big elms and planes after storms.
Fitzroy North is a suburb of Victorian and Edwardian terraces and cottages, with a few wider blocks and freestanding houses mixed in. Compared with Fitzroy proper, the gardens are a little more generous, and many back yards have a mature tree or two along with vegetable beds, fruit trees and climbers on the fences.
The suburb is also full of big deciduous trees, in the streets, in Edinburgh Gardens and in back yards. They look great, and every autumn they drop an enormous amount of leaf onto roofs, courtyards and gardens. Add the regular pruning and there's more garden waste than the bin can cope with.
In Fitzroy North, autumn means leaves everywhere: in gutters, courtyards, garden beds and drifting against back doors. A single big tree over a small yard can produce more leaf litter than a green bin can take in weeks.
Ross loads the leaves, bagged or loose, and can take away prunings from the same trees once they've been cut back by an arborist.
A lot of Fitzroy North homes are rented or have changed hands, and the back yard is often where things slip. Fruit trees that haven't been pruned, climbers that have taken over the shed, weeds that have spread across the whole bed.
Ross can take the lot in one visit: everything that's been cut back and pulled out gets loaded, and the yard is left swept. Tell him if there's anything you want to keep.
Parking can be tight in Fitzroy North, particularly in the narrower streets and around the shops. Some houses back onto laneways; many rely on a side path or the hallway.
Ross plans the job around access. A quick note or photo of the side or rear access helps a lot when pricing.
Autumn in Fitzroy North brings weeks of leaf drop, and wet leaves quickly block drains and turn paving slippery. A pickup in May, after most of the leaves are down, clears the yard for winter.
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.
