Big homes, compact yards and screening plants that were small when the estates went in. Ross collects the cuttings from Taylors Lakes gardens and takes the green waste away.
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 Taylors Lakes 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.
Hedge cuttings and palm fronds from estate 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.
Waste from maturing 1990s gardens 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.
Dry fronds, litter and grass cleared 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.
Branches from ornamental trees after a storm.
Taylors Lakes was developed mainly through the late 1980s and 1990s, with large brick homes, often double storey, on estate blocks built around a series of man-made lakes. When the estates were new, the gardens were young and small: a few palms, a row of screening conifers, some lilly pillies along the fence.
Thirty-odd years later, those plantings have grown up. Palms drop heavy fronds, conifers have turned into walls, and screening plants are several metres tall. The houses take up a lot of each block, so there is not much room to put the cuttings while they wait for the green bin.
In many Taylors Lakes gardens, the plants chosen for privacy along the fence have done their job too well. Lilly pillies, pittosporums, conifers and bamboo can grow well above fence height and spread across paths and into neighbouring yards.
A hard cut back brings them under control, but it produces a large amount of bulky material. Ross takes it all, including palm fronds, which are awkward to fit in a bin and slow to break down.
Because the homes in Taylors Lakes take up so much of the block, the paths down the sides are often narrow and sometimes blocked by water tanks, air-conditioning units or bins. Backyards can be small and hemmed in.
Ross carries the waste out along those paths or through the garage if that is easier. Let him know about any tight spots when you book.
Plenty of Taylors Lakes owners are now updating the original garden. That often means taking out the tired shrubs and overgrown palms and replacing them with something lower and easier to look after.
Once the old plants are out, Ross can remove the green waste so the landscaper or the owner can start fresh.
Screening plants in Taylors Lakes put on most of their growth from September onwards. A trim and clean-up in late winter or early spring keeps them manageable and avoids a much bigger job once they have shot up over summer.
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.
