Big bush blocks, gravel drives and gums everywhere. Park Orchards makes more green waste per house than almost anywhere in Manningham, and most of it needs clearing before summer.
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 Park Orchards 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.
Acre-block prunings and bush garden waste.
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.
Paddocks, bush edges and big gardens tidied.
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.
Fuel cleared from around houses 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.
Eucalypt limbs across drives and paddocks.
Park Orchards is semi-rural in feel, even though it's inside suburban Melbourne. Blocks are mostly an acre or more, there's plenty of remnant bush, many streets have no footpaths, and horse riders and walkers share the road edges. Houses sit well back among the trees.
With that much land and that many eucalypts, the green waste never really stops. Bark strips, sticks and leaves come down every week; branches come down in every decent wind; and native regrowth creeps back into cleared areas. Ross loads it by hand, takes it off the property and gets it to a green waste facility rather than it sitting in a pile for years.
On a Park Orchards block the piles are bigger. A spring clean-up can mean collecting litter and fallen timber from a large area, taking away bush that has been cut back from the house and dealing with a heap of branches that has been growing behind the shed.
Where there is more than one load, Ross will tell you at the start and plan the trips. It is better to do it properly in a couple of runs than to leave half of it for next year.
Park Orchards is bushfire-interface country, and the CFA declares a Fire Danger Period for the area each year. What matters most around the house is fine fuel — leaves, bark, twigs and dry prunings — because that is where embers catch.
Clearing that material from around the house, sheds, decks and fence lines is the core of a fire season clean-up. Ross takes it away rather than leaving it to be burnt.
Check your property's specific requirements with Manningham City Council and the CFA. Once you've gathered what needs to go, Ross can load it and take it away.
Gravel driveways, gates and long approaches are normal here. Most properties have plenty of room for a trailer, which helps, but soft ground after rain can make some areas off-limits.
Tell Ross about any gates, narrow sections or boggy spots when you book, and point out where the trailer can safely go.
Once the Fire Danger Period is declared, most of Park Orchards wants the same work done in the same few weeks. The clean-ups that go smoothly are the ones booked in September and October, while the weather is cool enough to load all day and there is time to fit in a second run.
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.
