Parkdale is quiet, family-sized and close to the water. Its back yards are bigger than they look from the street, and so are the piles of garden waste.
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 Parkdale 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.
Back-yard piles from a weekend of pruning.
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.
Deep back yards and overgrown fence lines.
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.
Dead growth and dry grass cleared for summer.
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.
Wind-damaged limbs cleared from yards.
Between Mentone and Mordialloc, Parkdale is mostly a suburb of family homes — plenty of 1950s and 60s brick veneers, some newer rebuilds and townhouses, and long back yards that run away from the street. The beach end has a coastal feel, while the streets further back from the bay are more straightforwardly suburban.
Those long yards are where the work is. Fruit trees, big shrubs along the back fence, sheds with climbers growing over them and lawns that need edging. When the whole lot gets a going-over, the waste is far too much for one bin. Ross does green waste removal in Parkdale for exactly that situation.
In a lot of Parkdale homes the front garden is small and neat, and the real garden is behind the house: a long yard with a clothesline, a veggie patch, a few fruit trees and a back fence hidden behind shrubs. That is where the pile ends up after a big cut-back.
Ross wheels or carries it out to the trailer, loads it by hand and tidies up behind himself. A photo of the pile and the path to the street helps him price it before coming out.
When a long-held Parkdale house is going on the market, the garden often needs more work than anything inside. Years of growth along fences, beds that have become overgrown and a back corner full of old prunings all need clearing before photos.
Ross can clear the lot in one visit and leave the yard ready for the agent, with the paths and paving swept.
The green bin is fine for week-to-week lawn clippings. A big clean-up will fill it for months, and branches have to be cut into short pieces to fit.
A single green waste pickup takes the lot at once, and it all goes to a facility where it is mulched or composted.
Parkdale gardens take off from September. Booking the green waste removal for straight after the spring prune keeps the yard usable for summer, and avoids the December rush when every household on the bay wants their garden sorted before Christmas.
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.
