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So I've got a two car garage, which is great, but I've now got a work van I park at home and would really prefer to park in the back yard so nobody screws with it. The back yard is a super healthy and hearty set of WEEDS that grow 24/7/365 that parking a vehicle over will get pretty old. Also managed to get a vehicle stuck back there before when parking it before one of our Central Texas flash floods made the ground impossible to drive on. Is there a material I can place down that will achieve the following goals? - Fairly easy to install - Won't entrap a two wheel drive vehicle after heavy rain (flash flooding here a time or two a year) - Will prevent or heavily retard the growth of grass/weeds - Doesn't get dusty or chalky when it's dry for a few months (end of summer can have 60+ days with no rain) - Isn't super permanent as my mid/long term plans may involve a detached garage in this spot. I'm particularly nervous about the grass/weeds thing as I went to a lot of work a few years ago to put in a rock garden which was PROMPTLY overrun by grass and weeds despite putting down multiple layers of weed blocking fabric and spraying it fairly often with roundup. It's just entirely shot now. The most common grass in the back is bermuda grass and it grows in/on/over/through EVERYTHING. It particularly likes warm places so the rock bed has been very attractive to it. Anyway, if that made any sense, I'd love your ideas. Crushed granite? Decomposed granite? Something else entirely? I really know nothing about this.
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Mar 16, 2016 18:32
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| # ? May 14, 2024 16:58 |
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Assuming you don't want to use concrete, asphalt, or pavers, I'd rent a mini digger and plate compactor. Strip the dirt to at least 100mm and cart it away. Refill with roading gravel, compacting fully and grading to drain. Then at the start of the dry season spray with a gravel lock type emulsion which holds the dust down for a couple of months. Stay on top of the weeds and it should be okay for a few years at least.
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Mar 16, 2016 19:08
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Gravel is your friend. If you are a very very very cheap person you can just buy gravel 20kg at a time and dump it where you need it. And you don't really need to compact it. I just dump what I need in a pile and then move it with a rake. It's easy as piss to install as long as you don't care about it being level or looking good.
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Mar 21, 2016 06:13
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DreadLlama posted:Gravel is your friend. If you are a very very very cheap person you can just buy gravel 20kg at a time and dump it where you need it. And you don't really need to compact it. I just dump what I need in a pile and then move it with a rake. It's easy as piss to install as long as you don't care about it being level or looking good. And the best part about gravel is that when weeds poke through, you just throw more gravel on top.
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Mar 29, 2016 00:17
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4+ inches of modified (2 different sizes of stone plus screenings so they all lock together) with geo-tex below it. Spray the poo poo out of the area with herbicide (preferably a systemic and a pre-emergent) before putting down the geo-tex. It will take a while to compact unless you have a roller or something to run over it. Getting rained on helps as well. If you decide to build a garage there later you'll be putting down crushed stone anyway before pouring concrete, so you can just excavate around this pad as necessary and then spread the modified as your base layer.
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Mar 29, 2016 02:02
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Thanks for the responses. Much, much appreciated. Modified? Is that the name of a specific product? A type of product? I've never heard of that or geo-tex, to be honest, but I'm pretty far from a paving expert.
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Mar 30, 2016 05:15
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chedemefedeme posted:Thanks for the responses. Much, much appreciated. Modified: http://ridgewoodsoils.com/stone/quarry/ So yeah, it's the name of a common thing you can get from any quarry. Geotex: http://propexglobal.com/GeoSolutions/Product-Tour/GEOTEX-Woven This is the trade name, but there are many others that will serve the same purpose.
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Mar 31, 2016 01:11
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You could use decomposed granite as well.
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Apr 4, 2016 21:28
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n.. posted:You could use decomposed granite as well. This actually brings up a good point: you need to be aware of what is available and used locally. DG isn't something I'd have cheap and easy access to here, but it may be cheaper than modified in other places.
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Apr 4, 2016 23:41
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I've thrown rock salt around my gravel driveway where stuff has started growing, it died pretty fast.
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Apr 5, 2016 09:40
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I've never heard the rock salt thing but googling that seems to find a lot of folks doing it. It's very cheaply available and perhaps would last a while? Right now this project is on hold while I'm getting a price from a guy to have it paved proper. Regardless I might try the salt thing elsewhere around the property.
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Apr 5, 2016 23:03
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If you are using geotex and gravel, or any loose topping - hose down the gravel first. Otherwise the next rain will hose the mud and dirt off it for you, creating a nice little layer of mud for the weeds to grow on, on top of the geotex! I did this a few years ago and ended up ripping it all off and doing it again.
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Apr 6, 2016 18:52
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Limestone dust to 3/4" would work great as well, because it'll seal up as it compacts and not scatter much, unlike something such as river gravel (which is absolutely terrible for this purpose).
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May 15, 2016 13:41
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I thought of this thread yesterday as I parked on a lot covered in old asphalt roofing shingles. Classy? No. Lumpy? Yes! Cheap? Probably if you're getting a roof removed!
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May 16, 2016 02:12
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Full of nails that were inevitably missed? Check.
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May 16, 2016 02:36
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One Legged Ninja posted:Full of nails that were inevitably missed? Check. 
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May 16, 2016 14:06
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Use preen.
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May 19, 2016 02:02
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Crocoduck posted:Use preen. You don't use preen when you want to kill everything period. You mix glyphosate and 2,4-D with some dish soap, dilute and spray. This is basically agent orange without all the cancer.
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May 20, 2016 02:28
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Motronic posted:You don't use preen when you want to kill everything period. *scribbles furiously* But what if I want to add the cancer back in?
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May 20, 2016 03:51
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OSU_Matthew posted:*scribbles furiously* Run a bit of asbestos through a router, collect the shavings and mix thoroughly. Or through a power sander.
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May 20, 2016 11:37
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OSU_Matthew posted:But what if I want to add the cancer back in? Go to the lowest bid contractor and ask them to meet unrealistic deadlines, wait for them to come up with a shortcut in the process that doesn't hold the reagents at a stable temperature and therefore ends up contaminating most of the batches with dioxin. There was nothing terribly dangerous about properly made agent orange other than the second component (don't remember, but not the 2,4-D) didn't break down very quickly, where glyphosate and 2,4-D will be almost completely broken down into totally harmless substances from sunlight after several hours. So spray in the morning on a sunny day and by the time it's dry it's nearly totally safe. In 48 hours it's almost definitely totally safe. This doesn't work as quickly as the old school stuff, but it's a hell of a lot safer. You're going to spray this and wait a week and go "that loving Motronic didn't tell me I needed to spray it AGAIN" but you don't. It works by inhibiting the plant's ability to take up water, so it's gonna take a couple weeks on already "properly watered" grass and weeds to totally kill them. Spraying again may make you feel better, but it's not gonna do anything that wasn't already done if you hit everything the first time.
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May 20, 2016 14:27
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Alternatively, if you want faster, more satisfying, but ultimately less effective results, hit the plants with a propane torch.
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May 20, 2016 17:33
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Zhentar posted:Alternatively, if you want faster, more satisfying, but ultimately less effective results, hit the plants with a propane torch. I may have done this with an enormous ant colony I discovered behind some retaining wall blocks... I couldn't find the ant poison pellets, so I was just like gently caress it and dumped a bunch of white gas on top and watched the fuckers burn. Haven't seen any ants since!
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May 20, 2016 23:08
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Motronic posted:You don't use preen when you want to kill everything period. At my very first job at a golf course, the groundskeeper had "weed killer D", which was straight diesel. It sure did work though.
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May 21, 2016 06:38
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kid sinister posted:At my very first job at a golf course, the groundskeeper had "weed killer D", which was straight diesel. It sure did work though. lol. That definitely does work. For a real long time. At a farm I worked on I used to mix up cinnamon extract and diesel to spray on the top rails of the fence to keep the horses from chewing on it where the fields came together. They liked to stare at each other and gnaw.......I don't get it, but I was tired of replacing fence. I'd try to avoid these kinds of things if you have a well around.......
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May 21, 2016 17:44
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Motronic posted:You don't use preen when you want to kill everything period. Glyphosate causes cancer, so no need to add anything extra
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Dec 19, 2016 07:12
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EPA just recently announced that it likely doesn't cause cancer. Of course, administrators also recently changed their lead scientist's conclusions on a major policy study, and said frakking doesn't pollute the water table before broad public outrage caused them to reverse course after it was way too late and the damage has been done. So... Who knows?
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Dec 19, 2016 13:11
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Fozzy The Bear posted:Glyphosate causes cancer, so no need to add anything extra Not quite as aggressively the same as "we didn't make the 2,4,5-T properly for this gub'ment contract and....whoops, dioxins."
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Dec 19, 2016 15:40
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