Family homes from the 1980s and 90s, gardens that have had thirty-odd years to fill out, and a green bin that was full last Tuesday.
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 Narre Warren 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.
Shrub and tree prunings from established 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.
Rentals and deceased-estate gardens in the courts.
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 growth on the bigger northern blocks.
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 over the fence or across the lawn.
Most of Narre Warren went up in the building boom of the eighties and nineties: brick homes in courts and crescents, a backyard with a Hills hoist, a couple of ornamental trees out the front and a row of shrubs down the side fence. Those gardens are now well established, and plenty of them have grown past what anyone planned for.
That's where the green waste comes from. A big cut-back of shrubs that have crept over the path, a conifer that finally has to go, or a back corner that's been left to the weeds for a few years. Ross does the loading, so you don't have to hire a skip or make trips with a borrowed trailer.
A shrub planted in 1990 as a small screen is often a three-metre wall today. Cutting it back to something manageable fills a trailer quickly, and so does pulling out old agapanthus, overgrown box and conifers that have gone brown in the middle.
Ross takes the lot — branches, stumps of shrubs you've pulled, root balls knocked clean of soil, and the clumps of weeds that come out with them. Heavy clay or loose soil stays behind, because the green waste facility won't take it.
Narre Warren has a lot of rental properties and a lot of long-term owners downsizing. Either way, the garden is often the last job on the list. A back yard that's been ignored for a couple of years can take a full day and more than one load.
Ross can clear it, sweep up and leave the yard ready for the inspection or the photographer. Agents and property managers can book directly — just give him the access details if nobody will be home.
Most Narre Warren blocks have a narrow side path and a shared-looking driveway in a court, which is easy enough for a trailer. The main thing that slows a job down is when everything has been piled behind the garage with no gate wider than a wheelie bin.
That is still fine. It just takes longer to carry, so let Ross know where the pile is when you ask for a quote.
November and early December are when half of Narre Warren wants the yard sorted — for visitors, for a sale before the holidays, or before a lease ends. Late winter and early spring are quieter, and a good time to do the big cut-back before everything puts on new growth.
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.
