Horse paddocks, hobby farms and houses set well back from the road. On Wonga Park's semi-rural properties the green waste piles up over whole paddocks, not just a garden bed.
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 Wonga Park 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.
Branch heaps and prunings on small acreage.
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.
House gardens and paddock 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.
Fuel removed around homes, stables 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.
Storm limbs across tracks and fences.
Wonga Park is the far north-east corner of Manningham, bordered on the north by the Yarra. It's a semi-rural place: small acreage, horse agistment, orchards and hobby farms, with houses surrounded by paddocks and stands of eucalypts. It feels a long way from the suburban courts of Doncaster.
Properties like these create green waste in a different way. Trees along fence lines and driveways drop branches, windbreaks need cutting back, house gardens are larger, and fallen timber collects in paddock corners. Rather than letting it pile up or burning it, Ross can load it by hand and get it off the property to a facility that composts it.
A lot of Wonga Park green waste is spread thinly: sticks and limbs along a fence line, a heap in the corner of the horse paddock, a windbreak that needs pruning back from the driveway.
Ross collects it where it lies and loads as he goes. If the trailer can drive across firm ground, it saves carrying; if the paddock is wet, he'll work from the track.
Wonga Park sits in bushfire-prone country, and the Fire Danger Period is declared for the area each year. Around the house, stables, hay sheds and tanks, fine fuel should be kept to a minimum.
A fire season clean-up means getting the raked-up litter, cut-back dry growth and branch heaps off the property rather than leaving them near buildings. Check with the CFA and Manningham City Council about the specific requirements for your property.
Semi-rural clean-ups are usually bigger than suburban ones, and it's not unusual to need two or three loads. Ross will tell you what he expects before he starts.
Very large jobs can be staged, with the area around the house done first and the outer paddocks or long driveways on a later visit.
Once the paddocks brown off and the Fire Danger Period is declared, Wonga Park property owners all want the same work done. Book in September or October, while the ground is firm enough for the trailer and there is time to fit in a second visit.
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.
