Open hills, farm properties and timbered gullies. In Kangaroo Ground the green waste is mostly branches and scrub, and there's usually a lot of it.
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 Kangaroo Ground 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.
Branches and scrub from rural holdings.
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.
Homestead garden prunings cleared away.
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.
Fuel cleared from around the homestead.
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 down after winds across the hilltops.
Kangaroo Ground is properly rural. It is rolling farmland on high ground east of Eltham and Research, with the war memorial tower on the hill looking out over the valleys. Properties are large, houses are few and far between, and the country alternates between cleared paddocks and heavily timbered gullies.
The green waste here comes from big trees and big gardens. Old eucalypts along driveways and fence lines drop limbs, homestead gardens need serious cutting back, and scrub needs clearing from around the buildings. Ross takes that material away by the trailer load, loaded by hand.
Being elevated and fairly open, Kangaroo Ground cops the wind. After a strong blow it is common to find limbs down along the driveway, on fences or in the house paddock.
Once the timber is on the ground, Ross loads it up and takes it away. He doesn't climb or fell trees, so anything still hanging or leaning needs an arborist first, and Nillumbik Shire Council permits may apply.
A lot of Kangaroo Ground properties have a proper garden around the house: established hedges, ornamental trees, roses, fruit trees and native plantings, often decades old. They look great and need a big cut-back every so often.
Ross can take what you have already pruned or collect everything from a full garden clean-up, hauling away the lot. Either way, the property is left swept and tidy.
Grassland and timbered gullies both carry fire, and Kangaroo Ground has plenty of each. The CFA declares a Fire Danger Period each year, and Nillumbik issues fire prevention notices to properties that need attention.
The most useful work is right around the house and sheds: leaf litter, bark, dead shrubs, old prunings and any pile of cut material. Ross loads it up and takes it off the property.
Out in Kangaroo Ground the paddocks dry off quickly once late spring arrives. Book the clean-up for October so the fuel around the house is gone and the piles are cleared before the Fire Danger Period takes hold.
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.
