Edwardian gardens, rolling streets and a lot of big trees. Ross clears the leaves, clippings and branches from Surrey Hills yards and takes them off for mulching.
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 Surrey Hills 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.
Leaves and clippings from Edwardian gardens.
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.
Weatherboard cottages with grown-out yards.
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 shrubs taken away.
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 down across paths and fences.
Surrey Hills is a hilly, leafy pocket on the Boroondara–Whitehorse border, with most of the suburb in Boroondara and its eastern edge in Whitehorse. The housing is mostly Edwardian and interwar — weatherboards, red-brick villas and California bungalows — with gardens that have filled out over a century.
Streets rise and fall, trees overhang from both sides, and the combination of old gardens and big canopy trees means a lot of green waste. Ross provides green waste removal in Surrey Hills for the piles the green bin can't manage, from the clippings of a single hedge trim to everything a full garden clean-up leaves behind.
Because the ground rolls, plenty of Surrey Hills houses sit above or below the street, with steps up to the front door and a back yard on a different level again. That makes the carry-out slower than it is on flat land.
Ross is used to it. He'll use a tarp or a barrow where it helps and carry by hand where it doesn't. Mention steps or slopes when you enquire and it'll be in the price.
The older weatherboard homes here often have cottage-style gardens: roses, lavender, salvias, bulbs and plenty of self-seeding plants. They look best when they're cut back hard once or twice a year, and that produces a surprising amount of soft green waste.
Overgrown creepers are also common on old fences and sheds. Once they've been pulled down, Ross can take them away along with everything else.
With so many large trees on small-to-medium blocks, it's not unusual to find a branch across the back fence or the front path after a windy night.
Ross collects what's on the ground and takes it away. If the tree is damaged or the limb is still hanging, get an arborist to deal with it first.
In Surrey Hills the leaf fall and the winter cut-back arrive close together. Book the pickup for late May or June so the leaves and the pruning go in one load, rather than filling the green bin twice a month through 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.
