Small courtyards, townhouse gardens and older houses on compact blocks — Moonee Ponds green waste loaded by hand and taken away, even when the only way out is through the house.
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 Moonee Ponds 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.
Courtyard and townhouse garden loads, big or small.
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.
End-of-lease tidy-ups for landlords and tenants.
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 picked up and taken away before the summer heat.
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 in small yards after a storm.
Moonee Ponds has changed a lot. Streets that were once all weatherboards and brick bungalows now have units and townhouses squeezed in behind the originals, and closer to the shops there are apartments. The result is a suburb of smaller gardens, but plenty of them, and many are rented.
Small gardens still produce green waste. A courtyard with a few established shrubs, a row of screening plants along a shared fence, or a back yard that has been left to go wild between tenants can all fill a trailer. What they rarely have is somewhere to store it, which is why a quick green waste pickup suits Moonee Ponds better than a skip.
In a townhouse, the garden is often a narrow strip or a paved courtyard with planter beds. Screening plants such as lilly pilly, bamboo and viburnum grow quickly and need cutting back regularly to stop them taking over.
Getting the cuttings out can mean going through the garage or even the house. Ross is used to that. He will bag or bundle the material where needed so it can be carried through cleanly, then take it all to the trailer on the street.
Rental gardens in Moonee Ponds are a regular job. A tenant moves out, the property manager does the inspection, and the back yard turns out to be knee-high weeds and a pile of prunings nobody took away.
Once the yard has been cut back, Ross can load and remove the lot in one visit, so the property is ready for the next photos or the next lease. Landlords and agents can book directly and send the key arrangements with the enquiry.
Not every block in Moonee Ponds has been subdivided. The ones that have not still have big old back gardens, sometimes with established trees, fruit trees and shrubs that have been growing for decades.
These gardens throw off much more than the green bin can handle, particularly after a winter prune. A one-off green waste collection clears the lot rather than feeding it through the bin fortnight after fortnight.
Most of the Moonee Ponds work that turns into a rush is tied to a rental. If a lease is ending or a property is going on the market, book the garden clean-up a week or two ahead of the inspection or the photographer rather than the day before. It gives time to deal with anything unexpected under the overgrowth.
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.
