Flemington's period homes often have more garden than you'd expect, with hedges, fruit trees and climbers that need regular work. Ross takes the 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 Flemington 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.
Hedges, climbers and fruit tree prunings.
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.
Period-home gardens caught up in one visit.
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 growth from yards.
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.
Limbs from established garden trees.
Flemington is mostly Victorian and Edwardian houses, from small terraces to larger freestanding homes, with some post-war houses and newer units mixed in. Many of the older homes have deeper blocks than their inner-city neighbours, with a front garden, a side path and a back yard with room for a tree or two.
Those gardens have been worked by a lot of different owners over the decades, and it shows: overgrown hedges, climbers on every fence, fruit trees and plants that have been left to spread. When it's time to catch up, the pile of garden waste is usually far bigger than the bin.
A lot of Flemington jobs are catch-ups: a garden that hasn't been properly cut back in years, or a new owner who wants to start fresh. Hedges get cut back hard, climbers come down, and old shrubs are pulled out.
Ross comes in once that's done and removes the waste. He leaves the yard swept and clear.
Access varies a lot in Flemington. Some houses have a side path, some a rear laneway, and some neither. Parking can be tight, particularly on event days near the racecourse precinct.
Ross plans around it. A photo of the access and any parking notes help him price and time the job.
Plenty of Flemington back yards have fruit trees and veggie patches, some of them decades old. Winter pruning of apricots, plums and lemons, and clearing out spent vegetable beds, produces a lot of material.
Ross takes away the prunings and spent plants so the yard is ready for the next season.
Fruit trees and roses in Flemington are pruned in winter, and a pickup straight afterwards clears the yard before spring growth starts. Book in July or August to have it done before everyone else starts their spring clean-up.
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.
