Briar Hill is small, steep and green. If your prunings, leaves or dropped branches have outgrown the bin, Ross will load them up and cart them off.
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 Briar Hill 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.
Pruning piles on sloping Briar Hill 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.
Terraced and split-level gardens tidied.
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 bark away from the house.
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.
Wind-blown limbs loaded and removed.
Briar Hill is a compact suburb squeezed between Greensborough and Montmorency, and most of it is on a slope. Houses are largely from the 1960s through the 80s, many built on the hillside with the living areas upstairs and a garden stepping down behind.
Those gardens tend to be well established by now. There are big eucalypts, ornamental trees and hedges that have been growing for forty years, and the combination produces a steady supply of garden waste. When the green bin can't keep up, Ross comes out, loads it all by hand and deals with the disposal.
Because so many Briar Hill homes are built into the hill, the garden often sits on two or three levels joined by steps or a sloping path. A pile of prunings on the lowest level is a long way from the street.
That's normal work for Ross. He carries material up the steps and out to the trailer, and he'll let you know if a job needs extra time because of the carry. Photos of the path help him get the price right.
Forty-odd years of growth means the trees in Briar Hill are big. Gums drop bark strips and small branches most weeks, and deciduous trees add a heavy leaf fall in autumn that ends up in gutters and garden beds.
Most people rake it into a heap and hope to get through it bin by bin. Once the pile has been there a few months it is quicker to have it taken in one trip, and a regular green waste pickup keeps it from building up again.
After a windy night it's common to find a limb in the yard or across the driveway. Ross loads it up and takes it away.
Standing trees are a different job. If a branch is still attached or a tree looks unsafe, that's for an arborist, and Banyule City Council may need to approve removal of significant trees. Ross can come in afterwards and clear up what's been cut.
Briar Hill is only a short way from the bush of Nillumbik, and dry leaves and bark around a house are worth clearing before the hot months. Late spring is the ideal window, before the summer heat and before the rush of pre-Christmas bookings.
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.
