Lazy gravel drive?

[Gareth Davies]

I have a fairly small gravel drive (about 17 feet long by 8 at the widest point).

The previous owners didn't lay it correctly or at all - as far as I can see they just put a very thin layer of gravel la few mm thick over a grass/soil base. Needless to say, weeds are a big problem although for very occasional driving on, the surface is fine.

I'm not in the mood to dig it out properly. It's not so much laziness as not wanting to spend money at present on soild and muck disposal.

Is there a workaround I can use until I can do it properly?

Would digging out a small layer, adding a weed sheet and then gravel on top of that to a few centimetres be a very temporary solution?

[Mark Allread]

All gravel drives will eventually gather muck in them and form a bed for weeds. You just keep topping up the gravel and use it as a mulch picking out the odd weeds from time to time until they become a big enough problem to top up the gravel again.

[Another John]

I'd second all of that, and add that spraying with a glyphosate weedkiller helps a great deal (for one thing, dead weeds are far easier to pull out than live ones[1]. Life's too short.

J.

[1] It takes a couple of weeks to act properly (unlike the cartoon TV ads, where the weeds fall over like bowling pins).

[Chris Hogg]

If you only want a temporary solution, prior to doing something more substantial, why not just kill the weeds with weedkiller? I'd use one like Bayer Path, Patio & Drive Weedkiller

or Scotts Weedol Pathclear . These are usually a combination of a (fairly) quick acting (10 - 14 days) and long-lasting weedkillers (3 months), and will kill deep-rooted weeds and keep the drive clear for the rest of the summer.

[Old Codger]

[Andrew Mawson]

Google 'Clinic Ace' - it's a glyphosate weed killer.

Andrew

[Tim Streater]

+1

Swot I'm doing.

[GB]

We used to use Sodium Chlorate. It killed the weeds, and nothing grew there for quite a while. Shame it's no longer available - I assume because it's too easy to make explosives out of it? That seems a much better solution (no pun intended) than glyphosate.

[Andrew Mawson]

Banned by the EU I'm afraid :(

Andrew

[Chris Hogg]

I wouldn't use it myself, but for no particularly good reason. It does tend to poison the soil and hang around, so can be quite long lasting in its effect, which is probably what you want on a drive, but not anywhere else. Run-off may be a problem. It's still available as a solution on Ebay, it seems.

As a lad I soaked loo paper in it, dried it out and tried it as rocket propellant in a cigar-tube rocket. Not very successful but great fun.

[News]

In message , Chris Hogg writes

Much better to mix it with sugar, then pack in tube of choice. So I'm told ...

[T i m]

I did similar ... made up a supersaturated solution and soak strips of newspaper in it and hang to dry. If burned as an open strip it would go like a fuse and give off loads of white smoke. Packed more densely it would burn 'quicker' of course. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[cl]

We have a big gravel drive. The best (as regards maintenance) parts are those where the gravel has impacted down with sand and some soil to form an almost concrete like surface. I chuck all sorts of 'gunge' of various sorts on the drive to try and encourage all of it to become more solid like the good bits.

[The Natural Philosopher]

spray it off with glyphosate, and add another 3" of gravel on top.

Then forget about if for another year

[Andrew]

Ditto Copper Sulphate and post-jun 23rd, Glyphosphate is being lined-up for a ban. Despite a total lack of evidence, some people are trying to classify it as carcinogenic. This may be a German plot linked to Bayers take over bid for Monsanto.

[Robin]

I thought the German problem was internal politics where there's a v big green vote (NB small "g") and the SPD using their support for a as a stick to beat up the CDU.

But either way I think the writing's on the wall with so many member States calling for a ban (or doing it unilaterally - e.g. the Netherlands).

But heh - the EU can always argue that they need an even bigger budget for the CAP to help the farmers adjust so everyone's a winner.

Anyone got a recipe to DIE glyphostate?

[Bill Wright]

We used to fill a strong bottle with it, drill through the stopper for the fuse, then run fast.

Bill

[GB]

Apparently not originally by the EU.

" In 2005, the use of sodium chlorate as a pesticide/fumigant was banned under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, "

Apart from that, it appears to be really quite dangerous to use, so I'm not sure it was at all a bad idea to ban it.

[The Natural Philosopher]

But its a herbicide?

total bollocks.

You have to drink bottles of the stuff.

[Andrew Mawson]

OK it was the EC:

Andrew