Vermont South is mostly 1970s and 80s homes in quiet courts and crescents. The gardens are well established, the blocks are a good size, and the hedge trims are big.
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 Vermont South 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.
Hedge and screen trimmings in bulk.
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.
Court-block gardens tidied front and back.
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 leaves cleared from decking and beds.
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.
Storm-damaged limbs collected and cleared.
Vermont South was one of the later parts of Whitehorse to be developed, and most of it went up in the 1970s and 80s. The streets are winding, with lots of courts and crescents, and the homes are generally larger brick houses on good-sized blocks, many with double garages and wide driveways.
Gardens here have had decades to fill in. Screening hedges between neighbours, large shrubs, established trees and wide lawns are common. When they get their annual cut, the result is a lot of bulk green waste. Ross takes the lot, cleans up after himself and deals with the disposal.
Privacy screens are a feature of many Vermont South back yards — long runs of lilly pilly, viburnum or pittosporum along the boundary. They're great for privacy but produce a huge volume of trimmings each time they're cut.
Whether you trim it yourself or have a gardener do it, Ross can take the clippings away. If neighbours share a screen, it's easy to book both sides on the same day.
Most Vermont South homes have wide driveways and double garages, which means the trailer can usually get close. That makes a big difference to how long the job takes.
Where the back yard is only reachable through a side gate, Ross barrows it through. It's worth mentioning the gate width when you enquire.
A good number of Vermont South homes are coming onto the market as long-term owners downsize. A garden that has been let go for a few years can drag down first impressions.
Once the overgrowth is cut back and the old plants are out, Ross can take everything away, leaving the yard ready for photos and inspections.
Vermont South hedges put on most of their growth between October and December. Get the trim done and book the pickup for late October or early November and you get a neat garden for summer without competing with the pre-Christmas 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.
