Lawn mowing in Ringwood North

About Ringwood North

The post office opened on 9 August 1920 in what was then a rural district, and the first primary school followed on Oban Road in 1923. A.T. Miles's Quambie orchard, mainly quinces, survives as Quambie reserve. The town centre grew at the corner of Oban and Warrandyte roads, about six shops by 1950 and forty years later a neighbourhood centre with a supermarket. The schools track the building: Norwood primary in 1956, Ringwood Heights in 1965, Yarra Valley Anglican in 1966, Parkwood High in 1979. Through the 1960s the suburb took in land north of Oban Road, including Warranwood and part of Croydon Hills, and it spread south by the 1990s.

The ground is about 146 m up and it is hilly. Loughnan, Warrandyte and Wonga roads make the southern boundary and Warrandyte-Ringwood Road the north-western edge, with the eastern and northern lines following property boundaries; Glenvale Road is the boundary with Donvale, and with Manningham. North Ringwood reserve and Quambie reserve are the named parks, with plenty of parkland nearby. A hillside lawn here is a matter of which way it falls and how the levels join. Give that, and whether the mower can drive onto the lawn or has to carry a machine down steps.

Most of the suburb is Maroondah, and the nature strip out the front is the council's; residents keep it tidy, no change is allowed without council approval, and once a planting is approved its upkeep falls to the owner. Thousands of strip trees go in each year. The FOGO bin here has a lime-green lid, takes garden and food waste and is emptied every second week, opposite the recycling week; garbage is weekly. A small part in the north-west is Manningham, with Glenvale Road as the boundary; there the household mows the strip by long-standing expectation and the green bin has been weekly since July 2023.