Clearance Before Landscaping | Tree Masters Herts

Home › Advice Centre › Garden Clearance

Clearing before a landscaping project is different from clearing for its own sake, because there is a specification to meet and somebody else's programme to fit. The failures here are almost always about coordination rather than about the work.

Clear to the Specification, Not to Tidy

The right level of clearance depends entirely on what is being built:

Patio, paving or a base — everything out of the footprint, including roots and stumps, because anything organic left under a hard surface decays and the surface settles
Raised beds or planters — perennial weed roots out thoroughly. Bindweed and ground elder come up through a new bed and are then permanent
Lawn — cleared, cultivated, levelled and firmed
Fencing — the line cleared to a working width on both sides, and old posts and concrete out
Drainage or groundwork — full access for a machine, which may mean clearing a route as well as an area

Ask the landscaper what they need rather than guessing. “Clear the garden” and “clear the patio footprint to 300mm below finished level” are different jobs at different prices.

A cleared garden ready for its next stage.

Get These Done Before Anybody Else Starts

Tree work. Once a patio is down, taking a tree out over it is slow, careful and expensive, and the risk of damage is real. Anything coming out should come out first
Stump grinding, while there is access for a machine. After landscaping there frequently is not
Invasive species. Bamboo and knotweed must be fully dealt with before anything is built. There is no fixing this afterwards
Anything needing consent. Protected trees take weeks. That process starts before the build programme, not during it

The expensive mistake is building over something organic. Stumps, roots and buried timber decay for years and the ground above them settles unevenly. A patio laid over a ground-out stump will dip, and the remedy is lifting the patio.

Access, Which Is the Other Half of the Job

Landscaping brings materials in as well as taking waste out, and that is usually a larger volume. Clearing the route is part of clearing the garden:

Widen and clear the access route, not just the work area
Take gates off if machinery needs to get through, rather than discovering it on the day
Identify where materials can be stockpiled and keep that area clear
Protect anything staying, before deliveries start rather than after

Agree Who Does What, in Writing

This is where money gets lost. The questions worth settling before either trade starts:

Who removes the existing lawn, the old patio, the old shed
Who takes the waste away, and which waste
Who is responsible for levels, and what the finished level actually is
Who deals with anything unexpected found in the ground
What condition the ground is handed over in, stated as a specification rather than as an adjective

The Ten Minutes That Saves the Most

Put the clearance team and the landscaper in touch before either quotes. It takes a short conversation to establish what is actually wanted, and it prevents both the gap where each assumed the other was doing something, and the overlap where you pay twice for the same work.

View our Hertfordshire Garden Clearance service →