annihilating the grass

[citygirlinthecountry]

Is there a way to permanently kill grass in an area? I am getting ready to put gravel down on my driveway and I'm tired of spraying weed killer. I've heard that salt water will do the trick, but how much salt, etc is needed to do the job?

thanks,
CG

 

[patandchickens]

If you salt the driveway, aside from possibly screwing up local groundwater, you are Real Real Likely to kill a bunch of adjacent grass as well. Not necessarily just along the driveway -- anywhere that drainage patterns take the salt. I would REALLY not recommend it at all.

Are you just trying to kill grass that pops up thru the gravel now, or are you also trying to keep it from coming back in the future?

If the former, multiple applications of Roundup (she says, not liking Roundup one bit) will do a reasonable job if you do it when the grass is actually growing well i.e. not too early in the year. It is not guaranteed to kill 100% of the grass roots, but honestly nothing is. A weed torch (used safely, don't burn down the neighborhood) will also do a reasonable job if you hold it on a plant long enough to kill some roots not just the leaves. Again, grass will eventually come back.

Your best defense against grass eventually coming back is to put a geotextile fabric under the new gravel (er, that is, lay it down properly and then put the gravel atop it). You want road quality landscape fabric for this, not the cheap thin garden-quality stuff at walmart. If you ask around you may be able to find someone with scraps you can buy at a discount; or you may need to contact a contractor (like the guys who you pay to gravel your driveway, even if you'd intended to do the job yourself). You need sufficient overlap between pieces, and you need to ensure the trucks/bobcats/whatever do not get it all askew when they put the gravel on top of it. It is not real cheap, but if weeds really bug you it might well be a worthwhile expense.

But you know what, eventually the grass will get thru, or above, the geotextile. That's just what grass DOES, and what gravel driveways do.

Good luck whatever you decide to do,

Pat

 

[Rosalind]

If you drive over it enough, it will die eventually. At least, mine did.

 

[whatnow?]

Heavy and repeated compaction will kill vegetation. If you have grass encroaching into the stone, your best bet is to dig it out and replace it with a lift of heavily compacted stone. The edges are probably "contaminated" with organics. (I'm now picturing the daylilies across the street that are pushing up through the asphalt.) Eventually, it will come back.

Have you tried chickens?

 

[Southern Gardener]

I have a gravel drive also and let me tell you - nothing, nothing, nothing will keep the grass and weeds out - they will eventually grow back after a dose of Roundup.

 

[citygirlinthecountry]

Hmmm, so I should give up and just live with the grass?

No salting. I don't want to screw up my neighbor's pasture next door.

I do drive over it, just not on the edges so much. The center is nice and compact and grass free.

After spending all the repair/remodel budget on a new hot water heater, I can't really afford right now to dig up the driveway to do it right.

I'll look into the landscape cloth. I got some of the commercial grade at Home Depot to use in the veggie garden under the pea gravel there. I'll try running some along the edges where the car never goes. I was just trying to avoid that if there was another way to permanantly kill off the grass.

Bummer. Thanks for the help anyway.

 

[patandchickens]

I am not sure I would bother with home depot commercial-grade landscape fabric -- it is not the same stuff as they use for roads and driveways, honest. ("Commercial grade", in a home depot or other big box store context, just means "slightly less flimsy", and in this case while it would probably be a reasonable bet for e.g. putting under gravel or mulch in a mostly-unplanted decorative bed, it is going to end up full of holes like a seive if you put it under gravel and then do compacting).

Gravel driveways just DO get grass growing in from the sides. If you haven't got a flourishing middle strip as well, your driveway is actually in quite good shape Look around at other gravel driveways in your area, you'll see what I mean

This may sound slightly stupid, but if the grass bothers you, quite probably a way to retard its advance is to quit driving only in the proper part of your driveway AFTER you regravel, sometimes drive off-center so that a wheel is just off the edge of the usual track and the other wheel is onto the center portion. Doing this regularly will keep those parts compacted the way they were originally installed (you *are* going to have a contractor do this, or will compact it well yourself with a heavy truck or vibrating compactor or at least a ride-on roller, yes?).

(I say this because riding rings for horses, if they are not built with road-type geotextile underneath the gravel base, tend to eventually sprout grass or weeds in the less travelled parts. The easiest solution to which is to vary where you travel -- move the jumps periodically, and if you're doing ringwork or dressage exercises, build the riding ring big enough that you can slightly 'migrate' where they occur and thus keep as much area trampled as possible.)

Good luck,

Pat, with not one but two gravel driveways, one of which definitely needs regravelling this year as the farrier's 3/4 ton pickup had to be winched out of it the other week -- although in my defense, he was driving pretty off-center