Groundskeeper

Plant it, forget it, the ground stays clean.

I wanted grass, ferns and stray saplings to stop creeping back into finished builds without babysitting a villager or setting up complicated automation.

Groundskeeper adds a simple autonomous marker: place it once, and it periodically keeps a fixed area around itself clear of unwanted vegetation.

How it works

Craft a Groundskeeper Marker and place it where you want to keep the terrain tidy.

On its own schedule, the marker scans an area around itself and removes only vegetation explicitly included in its maintenance whitelist.

Nothing else is touched.

Right-click the marker at any time to temporarily display its effective radius with particles, making placement and coverage easy to understand.

Three tiers

Each tier includes the functionality of the tier below it and expands upon it.

What it touches

The standard maintenance list includes:

• Short grass
• Tall grass
• Ferns
• Large ferns
• Saplings
• Compatible modded vegetation

Emerald and Ender Pearl markers can also prune low-hanging leaves.

Only leaves within 3 blocks of the ground in their column are considered for pruning, leaving the rest of the tree canopy untouched.

What it leaves alone

Groundskeeper is intentionally conservative.

It does not remove:

• Crops
• Farmland
• Flowers
• Logs
• Mature trees
• Buildings
• Other blocks that are not explicitly marked as maintainable vegetation

If a block isn't included in the configured maintenance tags, Groundskeeper ignores it.

Ender Pearl tier: drop collection

Place a chest or barrel directly underneath an Ender Pearl marker and harvested drops will be deposited into it automatically.

Existing matching stacks are filled first, followed by empty slots.

If the container has no remaining space, excess drops are discarded instead of being left scattered on the ground.

Night light

Every Groundskeeper Marker also works as an automatic night light.

When darkness reaches the required level, the marker lights itself automatically and switches off again during the day.

No additional redstone or automation is required.

Modded vegetation

Groundskeeper uses Minecraft tags to determine what can be maintained:

#groundskeeper:clearable_ground_plants

#groundskeeper:saplings

#groundskeeper:prunable_leaves

This means vegetation from other mods can be made compatible through a datapack without requiring an update to Groundskeeper itself.

Crafting

Every tier uses the same vertical recipe:

G
S
S

Where:

• G = tier material
• S = Stick

Lapis Lazuli Marker

• 1× Lapis Lazuli
• 2× Sticks
• Produces 3 markers

Emerald Marker

• 1× Emerald
• 2× Sticks
• Produces 3 markers

Ender Pearl Marker

• 1× Ender Pearl
• 2× Sticks
• Produces 1 marker

The Ender Pearl tier is intentionally more expensive because it provides the largest radius, fastest maintenance cycle, leaf pruning, and automatic drop collection.

Compatibility

• Minecraft: 1.21.1
• Mod loader: NeoForge
• No villagers required
• No mob AI or pathfinding
• No forced chunk loading
• Tag-based vegetation compatibility

Groundskeeper performs scheduled area scans against an explicit whitelist and nothing more.

Groundskeeper
by Worlds From Blocks Studio