For the established quarter-acre gardens of Templestowe Lower — overgrown shrubs, fruit tree prunings and the leaf pile the green bin never quite catches up on.
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 Templestowe Lower 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.
Fruit tree and shrub prunings from older yards.
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.
Rentals and deceased-estate gardens gone wild.
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 and leaves cleared from fence lines.
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.
Big old trees shedding limbs over back fences.
Templestowe Lower is one of the older parts of Manningham. Much of it was built in the 1960s and early 70s — brick veneers and a few weatherboards on proper quarter-acre blocks, many with the original owners' fruit trees, vegetable patches and mature shade trees still standing out the back.
Those gardens are productive, but they also make a lot of waste. Citrus, plums and apricots need pruning, old shrubs grow into thickets, and the big trees drop leaves every autumn. When a block changes hands or a family finally gets around to a proper tidy-up, the volume adds up fast. Ross handles the green waste pickup from start to finish: loading, sweeping and disposal.
Plenty of Templestowe Lower back yards still have the fruit trees planted when the house was new. A hard winter prune on a few old plums or a lemon that has taken over the corner produces a surprising amount of thick, awkward wood.
Leave it in a pile and Ross will stack it tightly on the trailer and take it away. Old grapevines, pulled-out tomato cages full of dead growth and cleared vegetable beds can all go on the same load, as long as there's no timber or wire mixed in.
A lot of properties here are being sold by long-term owners, rented out, or knocked down and rebuilt. Each of those tends to start with a garden that has been let go for a few years.
For a pre-sale tidy or an end-of-lease clean-up, once the overgrowth has been cut back, Ross can take away the whole backlog of cuttings and leave the yard presentable for photos or an inspection. Agents and landlords are welcome to book directly — just give him the access details and a contact on site if needed.
Many of the mature trees in the suburb are deciduous — elms, oaks, liquidambars and fruit trees — so autumn brings a heavy drop. Raking it into piles is the easy part; getting rid of it isn't.
The upside is that Templestowe Lower blocks are mostly flatter and wider than the ridge streets further east, with long driveways where the trailer can back right up. That keeps loading quick and the job cheaper.
The heaviest loads here come after the leaves finish falling in May and again after the winter fruit-tree prune in July and August. Get on the list before the piles sit through a wet month and start to rot into the lawn.
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.
