Mitcham's streets rise and fall, with big eucalypts, deep gardens and plenty of bush-style planting. It creates a lot of green waste and some awkward access.
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 Mitcham 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.
Gum bark, sticks and native garden 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.
Sloping gardens and deep back yards.
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.
Litter build-up cleared before hot weather.
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.
Large limbs down on sloping blocks.
Mitcham is hillier and leafier than the suburbs to its west. Many streets climb and dip, houses sit on sloping blocks, and tall eucalypts are a big part of the landscape. Housing ranges from post-war weatherboards to 1970s brick homes and newer builds, often with established native gardens.
Those trees and gardens produce a steady stream of green waste: bark and sticks from the gums, leaves from exotic trees, and prunings from natives that grow fast. On sloping blocks it all collects at the low point of the yard. Ross does the carrying, loading and green waste disposal for you.
Mitcham blocks often slope, sometimes steeply. The back yard can be well below the driveway, or the house can sit up high with steps down to the street.
Ross carries material to the trailer when he has to. It takes longer, and the quote accounts for it. Photos showing the path from the pile to the street are very helpful.
The gums around Mitcham drop bark, twigs and leaves all year and limbs in the wind. The native gardens under them — grevilleas, correas, wattles and tea-tree — need regular cutting back to stay healthy.
Once the litter is raked out of the beds and the natives are cut back, Ross collects it along with fallen sticks and bark, and takes everything away.
On a sloping block, a fallen limb can be tricky to get out. Ross carries or barrows it to the trailer. If a piece is too big to lift, send a photo and he'll say whether he can take it.
He doesn't climb, and he doesn't fell standing trees. If there's a hanging limb or a tree that looks unsafe, get an arborist in first, and check with Whitehorse City Council, as many trees need a permit.
Mitcham gardens build up a lot of dry bark and leaf litter over winter and spring. Clearing it in October or November, before the hot weather, keeps paths and gutters clear and gets you in ahead of the December rush.
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.
