Right against the Dandenong Ranges National Park, Upper Ferntree Gully's steep, heavily treed blocks need regular clearing. Ross loads it by hand and takes it 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 Upper Ferntree Gully 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.
Bark, bracken and prunings from hills blocks.
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.
Steep, overgrown gardens on the park edge.
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.
Serious fuel clearing 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.
Big gum limbs down after wind.
Upper Ferntree Gully is where Burwood Highway leaves the suburbs behind and climbs into the hills. The station sits at the bottom, and from there the streets wind up into steep, forested slopes right beside the Dandenong Ranges National Park. Tall eucalypts tower over many of the houses.
It's a beautiful place to live, and it generates a lot of green waste. Leaves, bark and twigs come down constantly, bracken and understorey grow back fast, and branches drop whenever the wind picks up. Getting that material away from the house is the biggest single thing households here can do before summer.
Many Upper Ferntree Gully homes back straight onto bush or national park. The vegetation doesn't stop at the property line, and the litter from those big trees lands in gutters, on roofs and all over the garden.
Ross works through it: collecting the leaf and bark litter, any bracken and understorey you've cut on your side of the fence, and the sticks and fallen branches, and loading the lot into the trailer by hand.
The Dandenong Ranges are among the highest-risk bushfire landscapes in Victoria, and Upper Ferntree Gully sits on their doorstep. The CFA declares a Fire Danger Period each season, and councils inspect properties and issue fire prevention notices. Parts of the suburb fall under Knox and parts under Yarra Ranges, so check with your council on what applies.
The priority is fine fuel near the house — dry leaves, bark, twigs and prunings. Remove it rather than moving it to a pile somewhere else on the block. Ross takes it away.
Some driveways here are too steep for a trailer. Ross parks at the top and carries everything up — slower going, and it's priced in, but it gets done properly.
Include a photo of your driveway and the path from the pile to the road with your enquiry. That's the best way to get an accurate quote without a site visit.
Hills households all want their fuel cleared at the same time — usually right after the first hot, windy day of the season. Book your Upper Ferntree Gully clean-up in September or October, before the Fire Danger Period, while there's still room in the diary.
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.
