Works record · July 2026
Client: a children’s nursery in Lancashire. Name withheld.
Job: grounds clearance, play areas, paving, planting beds.
Photographs: all our own, taken by the crew on completion day.
What we found
The grounds had got away. Weeds were coming up through the rubber-mulch safety surfacing. One of the tractor-tyre climbing features was half-buried in them. Moss had spread across the paved areas, and weeds had rooted in the joints of the flagstone path. Deep drifts of leaves lay along the fence lines and against the building. A raised planting bed had been left to itself. The red wet-pour safety surface and the timber decking were scattered with leaf litter and debris.
What we did
We cleared the weeds and moss from the play surfaces and the paving, including the flagstone path joints. The moss came off the paving with a Weibang moss brush, a purpose-built machine for stripping moss from hard surfaces. We cleared the leaf drifts from the fence lines and the base of the building. We tidied the planting beds. We cleared the rubber-mulch play areas and swept the wet-pour surface and the decking clean.
The pair below shows the fence line before and after, leaf drifts banked deep over the rubber mulch, then the fence and sleeper steps clear and the wet-pour swept.
How we left it
The after photographs show the site as we left it. The rubber-mulch and wet-pour surfaces are clear. The path joints are free of weeds. The decking is swept. The beds are tidy. The toddler slides on the grass bank, the tyre climbers and the sleeper steps stand clear of growth and litter.
Below: two more before shots, leaf litter across the wet-pour and decking, the tyre feature half-buried in weeds, then the wide view of the site on completion day.
For schools, nurseries and site managers
Great Oaks is a tree surgery and grounds maintenance firm based in Preston. This job, completed this summer, is the sort of grounds work we do: clearing safety surfacing, paving, planting beds and fence lines, then leaving the site clean. The client’s name is withheld; the photographs are our own. If you manage a school, nursery or commercial site, send us a couple of photos of the problem areas and we will tell you plainly what the job needs.
What happens next
A site like this stays right with a planned visit cycle rather than another rescue. If your grounds have got away from you, book a free walk-round and we will look before we price anything.
