GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

Glenna Rose · 09-07-2007, 01:28 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible

writes:
Omelet wrote:
We just had a driveway put in on our wooded property up
north in NY. The driveway goes back around 120 yards from
the main "road". The guy used large gravel, item 4, etc...
He refused to do it with out the geotextile. It came out
pretty well and according to him, it'll be there for years
and years inspite of the rough winters in that area.

I have a gravel driveway too.

It's a bitch to weed where I don't want to use roundup.

Well, it's only been in a week and hasn't gotten much rain
but I suspect having just been up there for 6 days, ain't
much gonna grow through this sob.... If you want to know
exactly what was done, I can ask Rick the next time I talk
to him, probably some time this week to make sure the well's
in. Getting water without that was a royal PITA.

The weeds won't grow through it. However, as dirt collects in the
rock/gravel, they will grow on top of it. The good part is that they are
very easy to pull since their roots are only down to the fabric. I put it
down around my rhodies after I lay a soaker hose, then bark dust on top of
the fabric. I still get occasional weeds in there after three years of
dust blowing in, however they easily pull up so I'm still happy about it.
The weeds that do start seem mostly not to last. I suspect it's because
the top doesn't get water during the summer so only the hardiest make it
until the end of June. :-)

I suspect raking the bark dust would have also eliminated any weeds
growing as it would expose their roots to the sun.

The good thing about is if I ever want to get rid of it, it will be only
the two pieces I put down to remove, not the jillions of pieces of black
plastic I had to clean out of the flower beds when I moved here!

Where we put it on the RV pad in the back has little vegetation. When I
bought this house, that area was a 12-plus-foot high bunch of Himalayan
blackberries. We used a backhoe to dig them out and also hauled off extra
dirt to help ensure getting most of the roots. I then violated a basic
belief of mine and we added casaron (?) to the area (the only poison ever
in my yard), covered it with fabric, then the gravel. That was in 1999
and all is still in good shape, little vegetation and all the gravel still
in place. However, it doesn't get a lot of traffic.g

This morning, I pulled up some fabric that I had covering the yard by the
driveway that I didn't want to deal with. There were occasionally a
series of roots that were growing all around trying to get through. It
was actually quite funny. The weeds that were growing on the top there
were already dried for lack of moisture so were easy to pull off with no
root depth. Actually, it was a bit weird. LOL

Glenna