Big old backyards, blocks about to be split for townhouses, and gardens that have been left to run. Ross clears the green waste in Niddrie and takes it away on his trailer.
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 Niddrie 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.
Green waste cleared from wide postwar backyards.
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.
Yards cleared ahead of a subdivision or rebuild.
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.
Cut grass and dry scrub carted away 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.
Old fruit tree limbs and branches loaded up.
Niddrie grew up in the years after the war, and its streets still have plenty of original brick and weatherboard houses on the wide, deep blocks of that era. Increasingly, those blocks are being sold, split and rebuilt with two or three townhouses, so the suburb is a mix of old and new.
Both halves produce green waste. The older houses tend to have large backyards with fruit trees, veggie patches gone to seed and decades of accumulated shrubs. The ones being sold for redevelopment often need the whole garden cleared first, which can turn into a sizeable load of bulk green waste.
The original Niddrie backyard was made for a family: a clothesline, a veggie garden, a couple of fruit trees and a shed at the back. Many of them have been left to grow over the years, especially where an older owner has not been able to keep up.
Getting one of these back under control usually leaves a lot of material to remove once it has been cut down to size. Ross loads up what has been cut and takes the lot away.
If a Niddrie block is about to be redeveloped, the garden usually has to go before the builders arrive. Ross can take away shrubs, small trees that are already cut down, and general overgrowth that has been pulled out, leaving the ground ready for the next stage.
He does not do demolition, and he will not take any building material or soil. Check with the builder and with Moonee Valley City Council about any trees that need a permit before they are removed.
Once the big clean-up is done, some Niddrie owners prefer to book a regular visit a few times a year. It is usually timed around the winter prune, the spring growth and a tidy before summer.
Regular green waste collections mean the piles never get too big and each visit is quicker, which keeps the cost down.
If you are selling or redeveloping in Niddrie, book the garden clearance well before the demolition date. Once the site is fenced and machinery arrives, getting a trailer in to load green waste by hand is much harder.
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.
