New homes, new gardens and plenty of grass. Ross takes away the offcuts, trimmings and weeds that a single green bin can’t keep up with.
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 Mernda 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.
Offcuts and trimmings from new 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.
Overgrown lots and rentals sorted out.
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.
Cut dry grass cleared on the fringe.
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 down after a strong northerly.
Mernda is one of the newer suburbs at the top of the northern growth corridor, with the train line reaching it in 2018 and estates still filling out around it. Most homes are recent builds on compact lots, and the edges of the suburb still meet paddocks and open grassland.
That means two kinds of green waste. There’s the stuff that comes with setting up a new garden — landscaping offcuts, lawn trimmings, shrubs that didn’t work out — and there’s grass and weeds, which grow fast in the open country and blow into yards all spring. Ross handles both, loading by hand and taking the lot to a green waste facility.
In the first few years in a Mernda home, the garden changes a lot. Plants get moved, hedges get planted and trimmed into shape, lawns go in and get edged, and a fair bit of what was planted by the builder comes out.
All of that produces green waste in bursts. Rather than filling the bin for months, one pickup clears it once the landscaping is done.
Mernda sits on the edge of open country, and grass is the big one. Vacant lots, easements and paddocks nearby seed yards through spring, and weeds like thistles take hold quickly in new soil.
Once it has been cut, Ross can take the grass away along with the weeds and prunings, so it all goes in one trip rather than months of full bins.
On Melbourne’s outer edge, the fire risk is mostly grass rather than forest. Long, dry grass along back fences and on vacant blocks can carry a fire quickly on a hot northerly day.
The CFA declares a Fire Danger Period for the area each year. Getting grass cut and dry cuttings removed before then is the practical way to reduce the risk around the house.
Grass around Mernda grows hard through spring and turns dry and flammable by early summer. Get it cut and the cuttings taken away in late October or November, before the Fire Danger Period starts and everyone on the corridor wants the same thing.
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.
