End of lease and pre-sale garden tidies: what agents and landlords need to know
A garden tidy before a final inspection and a garden tidy before a photography day are two different jobs with the same name. One has to satisfy a condition report. The other has to survive a wide angle lens. Both fail for the same reason, which is that the green waste is still on site when the day arrives.
Prices current as of August 2026. This page is general information about how these jobs are priced and scheduled. It is not legal advice, and what applies to a particular tenancy depends on the rental agreement and the condition report.
What the tidy has to cover before a final inspection
An exit tidy is measured against the condition report, not against how the garden looks in isolation. That makes it a narrower job than most people assume. The work is bringing the garden back to where it started, allowing for fair wear and tear, rather than improving it.
- Lawns cut front, back and nature strip, with the edges done, because an unedged lawn photographs as an uncut one.
- Weeds out of beds, paving gaps and fence lines.
- Hedges and shrubs back to roughly the size they were at the start of the tenancy.
- Paths, driveway and crossover blown down.
- Every bit of the resulting green waste off the property.
Photographs from the entry condition report are the reference. Consumer Affairs Victoria recommends both parties photograph the property, and where those photos exist they settle most arguments about the garden faster than any inspection can.
What changes when the photographer is coming
A pre-sale tidy is the opposite job. There is no condition report to satisfy and no previous state to return to. The garden simply has to look its best on one specific morning, which changes the timing more than it changes the work.
Cut too early and the lawn is shaggy again by the shoot. Cut the morning of, and the clippings, the tyre marks and the trailer are in the driveway when the photographer arrives. Two or three days before photography is the window that works, with a second quick visit before the first open if the sale runs long.
Edges matter more here than anywhere else. A wide angle lens picks up the line where lawn meets concrete across the whole frame, and a clean edge reads as a maintained property in a way a freshly cut lawn alone does not.
Who carries the cost, the rental provider or the renter
Consumer Affairs Victoria guidance on keeping a rental reasonably clean lists regular gardening and yard maintenance, including weeding, pruning and lawn mowing, as the renter’s responsibility unless the rental provider has agreed to take it on. Work requiring a ladder, a cherry picker or specialist equipment is generally the rental provider’s.
That is the general shape rather than the answer for any particular property. Agreements vary, some make the rental provider responsible explicitly, and the condition report signed at the start is what the exit is measured against. Renters have five business days from the move in date to complete and return it.
Anyone in an actual dispute should go to Consumer Affairs Victoria or Rental Dispute Resolution Victoria rather than take a gardener’s word for it. What a gardener can tell you is what the work costs and how long it takes.
Why the green waste has to leave the property
In Wyndham this is not a matter of preference. Wyndham City states that under local laws it is an offence to place hard and green waste on the nature strip or crossover, and that waste must sit within 4 to 10 metres of the street kerb on your own property. Penalties apply for waste still there 24 hours after collection day.
The council collection is a real option, but it is slow. Most Wyndham households get three free hard and green waste collections each financial year, each covering up to 3 cubic metres and combinable in multiples of 3 up to 9. Collections must be booked at least a week ahead, and Wyndham lists waiting times of two to three weeks. Additional collections are $111.50 each.
For a tenancy ending on a fixed date, or a property being photographed on a fixed morning, a two to three week wait is not a plan. A pile of prunings sitting in the front yard on inspection day is worse than not having cut them, because now it is both untidy and clearly recent.
How far ahead to book
Two weeks is comfortable, one week is workable, and the day before is a gamble. The binding constraint is rarely the gardener’s diary. It is whether the waste can be gone by the deadline, which rules out council collection for most exit dates.
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Two weeks out
Book the tidy and confirm what it includes. This is also the point at which a photo of the garden gets you a firm figure rather than a range.
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Two to three days out
The work happens, with the green waste leaving the same visit. Late enough that the lawn still looks cut, early enough to fix anything missed.
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The day before
Walk it with the condition report photos, or with the shoot brief. Anything left is small and quick at this stage.
For agents and property managers
The useful thing to know about a sole trader is which jobs suit one and which do not. A vacant property tidy inside a normal notice period suits one person well, particularly a recurring one on the same round, because the same gardener seeing the same property twice remembers what it looked like last time.
What does not suit one person is a full property strip needed inside two days, or several properties on the same deadline. That is crew work, and a crew will do it faster than a sole trader can. Sending that job to one man with a trailer wastes the week for everyone.
For anything booked ahead: a firm price before the work starts, no GST on the invoice, and the green waste gone the same visit rather than staged on the nature strip for a collection that has not been booked yet.
How James handles these jobs
An end of lease or pre-sale tidy is from $380, which covers the cutting and up to half a trailer of green waste taken away with tip fees included. A full day, where the garden needs more than that, is $680 with a full trailer. Extra loads are $180 each. Every figure is on the plans and pricing page.
For comparison, Melbourne guides published in 2026 put gardeners at $45 to $80 an hour and a full maintenance visit at $120 to $250, before disposal. The $380 is a job price with the disposal already inside it, agreed before he starts. If the lawn itself is the problem, the overgrown lawn guide covers why that job is priced differently.
If James is on a mower when you ring, leave a message. He calls back the same day.