Does water soak through gravel

[cgw]

Hi,

I want to replace the lawn in one of the IPs with gravel and put a few very basic succulents in.
As the IP is brick, not brick veneer, if I have no lawns, does the heavy rain soak down into the ground to keep the undersoils moist enough to stop the house walls/paths cracking.
What is the best type of gravel to use, for lawn replacements, and for path to the front door.

 

[RumpledElf]

It'll soak through. Lay it about 4 inches deep and you'll get less weeds.

Depends on the style of your house, personally I like something with biggish stones to go with succulents (my front yard is succulents and railway ballast), so see if you can get hold of river pebbles. Costs a bit more per tonne, but looks nice.

BTW if you're in a frost-prone area, a surprising number of succulents don't tolerate frost.

Edit: oh, you're in adelaide. No frost then, unless your IP is on top of mt lofty

 

[harb]

Hi,

What is the best type of gravel to use, for lawn replacements, and for path to the front door.

Depends on the color you want. Whichever you chose don't forget the weed-mat . Not only does it help with the weeds but also cuts down on the thickness of gravel required and saves you on having to top up every few years.

 

[SOULFLY3]

As a landscaper id use plastic under it weed mats are useless
Cheapest is just a road base or more expensive you could use a topping such as lillydale or dromana dunno wot the names of material in Adelaide are

 

[Tizzy]

I'm curious about why weed mat is useless? It's designed to let the water through and plastic will restrict the water soaking in.

I've also used metres and metres of weed mat under pebble quite recently so now I'm a bit worried

 

[harb]

As a landscaper id use plastic under it weed mats are useless

Are you using it to stop weeds or to cut down on the amount of gravel used ?
I've tried plain black plastic once, to save a few $ but had to poke holes in it after the first rain and ended up replacing it 2 years later. I'm not a landscaper so you probably can get better stuff than the black plastic film I got from Bunnings. Last one I did was a year ago where I used the wide strip nylon woven stuff from Bunnings and layed the footpath walking slabs over it and cover the rest with 2" of pea gravel.
So far its the best gravel job I done, despite the big rains we had recently there is no water ponding and I've only used half the amount of gravel. I'm really proud of myself.

 

[gerd.]

Weeds ( plants that are not wanted in that area ) will only grow from the top down, once a mulch barrier has been established.

Providing that the said barrier is of a type that eliminates growth from the substrate.( them little suckers cant get a root hold below ).

You are now in control.

Gerd

 

[Rockstar]

Hi Folks, I'm also a landscaper/horticulturalist.

Now if you want the water to penetrate then you have to use weedmat (or nothing at all) under the gravel. If you want the water to shed away from the house slab then you have to use plastic and lay it on a prepared substrate that is sloping away from the slab so that moisture is reduced around the slab. Engineers prefer this to protect the slab from encountering moisture fluctuations which leads to potential ground movement causing slabs to crack. That is why they love to see hard paving surfaces around the house that is laid sloping away from the slab - the ultimate protection from moisture getting under the slab.

Re the weeds. Whatever you put down - after time you will get dust and organic material settling into the mulch which provides a medium for weed seeds to land in and germinate. Add some rain and they will grow. If you have weed mat under your mulch the seeds that germinate on top of the matting will easily get their roots through the fine holes and into the soil below. (remember that weedmat was designed for preventing the seeds in the soil from coming up but not the ones that germinate above the matting in the mulch. So in this case plastic would be more useful for longer term suppression as the seeds that germinate above cannot penetrate the plastic and get a hold in the subsoil - however they still may grow somewhat in the mulch layer.

And for those who are not into mattings - there's always good old Round Up!

 

[marg4000]

We had a gravelled area for a while but, contrary to popular belief, it is NOT maintenance free.

After time, dust, dirt, twigs, leaves, bird poop, etc build up and are hard to remove as it is not easy to rake gravel. Then weeds take hold in the dirt build up.

Be prepared to poison weeds at least on an annual basis, and probably top up gravel periodically.
Marg

 

[RumpledElf]

My gravel out the front has really cut back on the weeds but they still come, and are much easier to spray as there are less of them. I've never managed to get enough mulch out the back in the yard close to the house to do anything - worms/bugs have moved in, so every time I get a layer of mulch down they eat the lot within a couple of months and I'm back to bare soil. Put down woodchip mulch last year and it got washed away in a flood (it floats!). I could put woodchip or peastraw down everywhere in the small part of the yard but it would cost me a few $1000 so its not going to happen.

I spray the weeds on the paths near the house with roundup, but I have the sort of weeds that don't die from roundup and you can't pull them up. Rabbit in a mobile hutch deals with the winter grass pretty well.

The rest of the yard is too big to spray, too big to mulch, is unfenced so I can't run animals, and I have baby trees planted so I can't really use a systemic poison. So once a year, just before fire season starts, we whippersnipper it, mound the snippings and burn it. Its like a 1100sqm money-sucking void of horribleness, I do my best to ignore it and hope it will go away but I get the notices every year to mow or be fined. It also has a large patch that is lower than the footpath/road so it goes underwater every time it rains. I keep meaning to hire a bobcat and turn it into my own personal wetland.

Lets see any landscapers deal with THAT lol

 

[Rockstar]

Lets see any landscapers deal with THAT lol

What's your budget Elf? Could do with an outback adventure.

 

[harb]

I spray the weeds on the paths near the house with roundup, but I have the sort of weeds that don't die from roundup

There is no such weed, but there is useless roundup that won't kill some weeds.
If you are anywhere near Clare or Barrosa valleys drop into one of the big vineyards and ask nicely for some of the stuff they use to kill weeds around the trunks of grape vines. Just bring your own bottle, funnel and gloves would also come in handy, as it comes in 20-200LT drums.
About 3 years ago I got some "roundup" from one of the vineyards in southwest of WA and it looked like a thick liquid washing detergent. They mix it with water in 1000ltrs tanks and spray it at the base of the plants to stop weeds for a whole year. I used one cup of that in 5Lt of water and turned the whole vacant block into desert, killed all the nasty reeds near the canal wall that wouldn't die with the stuff from Bunnings, some blackberry looking weeds, a few different bushes, 3 large wattle trees and thanks to the sea breeze getting the mist over the wall I even put a 2 meters wide fire-break through the landscape on my neighbor's property. Never thanked me for it but at least recently he's started talking to me again.

 

[TommyR]

....... it got washed away in a flood (it floats!).

How often does that happen? I had the impression it doesn't rain very often in your neck of the woods

Tom

 

[topcropper]

About 3 years ago I got some "roundup" from one of the vineyards in southwest of WA and it looked like a thick liquid washing detergent. They mix it with water in 1000ltrs tanks and spray it at the base of the plants to stop weeds for a whole year. I used one cup of that in 5Lt of water and turned the whole vacant block into desert, killed all the nasty reeds near the canal wall that wouldn't die with the stuff from Bunnings, some blackberry looking weeds, a few different bushes, 3 large wattle trees and thanks to the sea breeze getting the mist over the wall I even put a 2 meters wide fire-break through the landscape on my neighbor's property. Never thanked me for it but at least recently he's started talking to me again

The roundup city people buy from say Bunnings is watered down.

Farmers get the pure stuff, and it's thick, like washing detergent. Also very heavy, and one thousand litres weighs a lot more than a tonne. 5 litres of pure roundup should be enough to kill everything on 5 hectares.

Great stuff roundup. Revolutionary for farmers.

See ya's.

 

[Sunfish]

I used one cup of that in 5Lt of water and turned the whole vacant block into desert,

Surely you jest!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[WinstonWolfe]

anyone used paraquat?

 

[harb]

Surely you jest!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saved me a fortune in site costs when the builder started work. Now if only I could find something as good to get rid of the bloody ants.

 

[topcropper]

anyone used paraquat?

paraquat, sprayseed, etc...??

Not as good as roundup. Paraquat just burns the top of the plant. The plant may come back again from the roots. Roundup kills the entire plant, and it wont come back. Paraquat is fairly dangerous to use too, and if you drank it, you would die a horrible death. Common suicide method. Drinking roundup just gives you a crook belly.

See ya's.

 

[WinstonWolfe]

paraquat, sprayseed, etc...??

Not as good as roundup. Paraquat just burns the top of the plant. The plant may come back again from the roots. Roundup kills the entire plant, and it wont come back. Paraquat is fairly dangerous to use too, and if you drank it, you would die a horrible death. Common suicide method. Roundup just tasts yuk.!

See ya's.

yeah seen a farmer up close and personal who drank a litre. took him 36 hours to kark it. nothing the docs could do for him.

should imagine you wouldn't be too healthy if you drank a litre of round up either.
wow...just looked it up.....didn't realize roundup is not that toxic....Class 3.
Paraquat is Class 1.

 

[Rockstar]

Drinking roundup just gives you a crook belly.

See ya's.

The smell of that stuff gives me a crook belly TC! Have you had a swig of the juice. I read an independant report once saying it contains small traces of Dioxin. Not that Monsanto will let that out - they do all the analysing of course!