Footscray back yards are small, but they grow fast. Ross takes away the vines, fruit tree prunings and overgrowth that won't fit in a green bin, carrying it out through the side path or the laneway.
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 Footscray 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.
Vines, fruit tree prunings and palm fronds.
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.
Rentals and share houses gone wild out the back.
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 growth and litter hauled away from fences and sheds.
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.
Storm-dropped limbs loaded and hauled away.
Footscray is a mix of Victorian and Edwardian cottages, post-war houses, units and newer townhouses, and most of them have a modest yard that nobody quite keeps up with. Grapevines over the pergola, a lemon or fig that has doubled in size, passionfruit smothering the fence, and a strip of lawn along the side that turns into a jungle over one wet spring.
None of it is a big garden, but it adds up quickly, and a council green bin fills after one afternoon of cutting back. Ross does the green waste removal Footscray households need when the pile is bigger than the bin: he carries it out, loads it and takes it away to be mulched.
Footscray gardens tend to be productive rather than formal. Fruit trees, vegetable beds, vines and big leafy shrubs planted by previous owners decades ago. Those plants love the warm, sheltered back yards and they put on a lot of growth every year.
Cutting them back is the easy part. The hard part is what to do with a trailer's worth of woody prunings when you don't own a trailer and the bin is already full. That's the job Ross takes on.
Plenty of Footscray cottages have no driveway at all, and the only way out of the back yard is a narrow side path or a gate onto a bluestone laneway. Parking out front can be tight too, particularly near the shops and the station.
Ross works around it. If a rear laneway gets him closer to the pile, he'll use it. If it all has to come through the house side, he carries it. Mention the access when you book so the price reflects it.
A lot of Footscray houses are rented, and the garden is often the last thing anyone thinks about until the lease is ending or an inspection is booked. By then it can be a full clean-up rather than a quick trim.
Ross can take the whole lot in one visit: everything that's been cut back or pulled out gets loaded, and the yard is left swept. Landlords and property managers can book directly too.
By late spring the vines and fruit trees in Footscray yards have put on a season's growth, and everyone is cutting back at once. Book the pickup for when you've finished pruning and the pile goes straight onto the trailer instead of sitting in the yard for weeks.
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.
