Break up with tines on tractor or other power equipment, or dump good topsoil on top and plant in that.

How deep should the "break up " be to prepare the area for small-ish trees? should the break up be over the entire area? will a single pass with a tractor break up the soil adequately?

What you've suggested sound just a bit too "easy" for me to believe...

gulp!

What is/was the driveway that you want to rehabilitate made from, are we talking about compacted soil or other stuff?

I'm sorry! I completely forgot to tell whats there now (duh).What we have right now is essentially gravel. It is the base for a proper driveway, but has never had the final "frosting" added to it. It drains very well. It has been in place for going on 16 years and that's why I say it's "well compacted".

We'd like to close off the present entrance and establish a planting to screen the "full frontal" of the house from the road, giving us more privacy in our front yard on what is a very busy tourist road.

Thanks for your help.

Are you planning to plant a lawn in some of the old driveway bed or will the whole area be a shrub border?

The goal is to begin a shrub border to block the road. I hadn't really thought about adding lawn, frankly. I'm more interested in bordering the driveway with "bullet proof" perennials than with turf.

Winters here are frequently "brown", but we can also get walloped with snow... depends on the track of the fronts. But planning for snow and its relocation dictates a "DMZ" along the driveway. The low nature of the lot makes lawn easy, and I don't mind mowing, but I'm not really interested in adding more mowing. A fall "haircut" and a spring clean up appeals to me more (and spring bulbs!).

I just spent some time on this site researching a similar problem and there is some good advice, but no one sure answer. If you search using compacted soil, you can read some of the same things I did. Certainly using heavy equipment to break up the soil is a good way to get started, if you can (I can't), but the general wisdom is to add more than just good top soil--you need to add compost, mulch, etc. Timing of your planting also appears to be critical--to enable the establishment of deep roots which will help to aerate the area and lots of watering to get the deep roots established (have you thought about an automatic sprinkler system? If not, you might want to consider it while you are under construction).

Reading your intended plan to 'fine tune' the driveway for a better turning radius leads me to the following thought.

Retain a company which installs driveways, dig and remove the compacted gravel where you wish to plant shrubs and use it on those parts of the drive to be changed. Fill excavation with topsoil and plant shrubs. Or, have any excess gravel hauled away. Gravel in planting area should be removed for healthy shrub growth.

I don't know if this will work, but it may be worth investigating further if the area is large enough to warrant it. Farmers use cover crops to break up compaction and add organic matter to the soil. Alfalfa is one with deep roots, but there are others. Tilling in the plants at the end of the season adds organic matter to the soil. There have been studies to find plants that will do the job in one season.

A search for "cover crops" will turn up articles and lists of plants that might work. I'd remove as much gravel as possible in any case.

Ironbelly posted about a piece of heavy equipment he used to break up compacted soil a while back, it's probably dropped off a long time ago.

I had not considered the idea of cover cropping, but it is certainly an excellent one and done in conjunction with the addition of "replacement soil", would certainly add nutrients as well as allow us more time to study the area and weigh our options. And the options appear to be many!

How deeply should the gravel be removed (3-4')? The power lines are on our side of the road and there are still 1-2 red maples to be removed. We've considered Kousa dogwood, perhaps a Magnolia, and some evergreens (winter cover for the birds).

Thank you for your valuable insight (we're all about "recycling" the driveway gravel! "waste not, want not", and all that...).

It was actually moi what suggested a sub-soiler to IB way back Jo but in this instance I think removal is the answer.

We have a farm field that was planted to sod when we bought it (unfortunately.) It was so compacted (to keep the sod roots from growing deeply) that a fully loaded semi truck could drive across it without leaving tracks! It has now been taken over by the local dairy farmer who for four years now has planted a green manure crop in the fall to till in every spring, manured and disked it annually, added wood ash, and deep plowed it twice. The corn looks much better now than it did the first year, but still has a ways to go before it is at its best productivity. So based on my experience, since you have a small enough area that you can remove your compacted gravel and replace with top soil and compost or manure, I'd do that if its within budget. Otherwise you may find that your screening shrubs don't grow as fast or as well as you'd like.

I haven't tried this myself, but I know plenty of people whio have (and I plan to do it with my next garden bed) - compost in place. Can you get rid of the gravel? what you essentially want to do is create perfect soil by setting down organic layers.

Start by putting down 5 or six layers of moistened newspapers. Then build up layers - used coffee grounds, vegetable peelings, grass clippings, composted manure, etc. Alternate layers, moistening each one. Leave for six months or so. You will have perfect soil. And the compacted earth underneath will now also be friable.

For more info on this, go to the soil forum and search "lasagna". There's a book on this called "Lasagna Gardening". The author used this on a section of land that had been used for parking for a number of years (she owned an inn) and the earth was packed down hard. Six months after doing this, perfect gardening soil with no digging.

Warning: raw vegetable scraps are attractive to small rodents.

We've been composting for many years now with great success (and no pest problems). I think the area is a bit large for the "lasagne" method, though.

Removal and recyling is the answer, but how deep should the removal go to support shrubs/small trees (to 25-35'). I'm not clear about that aspect, at all.

Hey, Tony, I remember seeing a photo of someone sitting on a piece of heavy equipment, and I thought it was IB. Did you get the photo I sent of my grandson?

chelone,
All driveway gravel should be removed in the planting areas. Your contractor will be using a backhoe for this driveway work. Ask the operator to use the 'bucket' to soften up the sides and base of the excavation before good soil is trucked in and put in place. Is the rest of the front road area presently planted with shrubs? I would encourage tilling the whole intended bed with a strong tiller such as TroyBuilt, spreading and working your compost in with the new topsoil. What is the winter road salt situation in your area along a heavily traveled road? Something to consider.

Also, if this work is done in the fall when trees are approaching dormancy, it is possible to replant shrubs and younger trees with a backhoe dozer blade to a more desirable location. It is a quick operation which barely disrupts the plant. Success rate is usually pretty high.

Here is some background on the lot we inhabit. It is low in nature, the road is higher than our lot (runoff is part of the bargain, and they salt the roads as required). In the 60s a drainage gulley was dug to direct water to the northwest side of our lot and on into what is a VERY large swamp (it's beautiful and protected). The remaining "high spots" were cleared for grazing, mostly sheep, in the mid-nineteenth century. As farming waned, they were reclaimed by natural processes. Lots of red maples, highbush blueberries, Ilex verticillata, sumac, etc., ferns galore! As is common in my area, the ledge is high. The NW footing of our home is on it and the septic system is raised. The hole for the garage footings gradually filled with groundwater and we spent a lot of time with the engineer and excavator to arrive at the best solution to the inevitable spring "run".

The area along the road is not presently planted with shrubs... it was "wild" (I loved it) but it was destroyed when the trees were removed for the garage. So now there is NOTHING to impede my view of speeders, litterers, and gawkers. ;) I'm not as concerned about planting that area as it is simply denuded of vegetation, but was never "filled". The present mouth to the driveway was filled years ago. I have no real idea how deep or what sort of fill was dumped there; could be 2' or could be 4'... I don't know and there is no record. That's the area I'm most concerned about... without putting a tape on it I'd say 30' long x about as wide, give or take some.

The excavator is great; watching him operate the machinery is like watching a ballet. He will do whatever is asked of him and do it well... I need to know where to begin the planning (how deep to gouge), what things to ask him to do, and when to (ideally) "pull the trigger". I'm aware this is potentially expensive, and I'd rather suffer the learning curve before and do it properly than waste money on a half-assed attempt and have to do it again (contrary to my innate Yankee sensibility). I want the plant material in and growing, ASAP. I don't care for the "on display" feeling my home now has. I'm really liking the notion of relocating/"repurposing" shrubs that are presently languishing.

I reclaimed a gravel parking area for a garden. I removed all of the loose gravel I could and reused it for a drainage elese on my property. The gravel was not installed over any geotextile, so it had mixed in with the underlying soil. I removed the soil/gravel mix until I reached a layer of about 30% gravel.

As your fron New England, you know that plants will grow in our rocky soil just fine.

Have you considered the materials management details if your entire driveway area is reclaimed by removing all gravel? If you have a 900 sq foot area with an estimated 6 inches of gravel(?) then you are looking at ballpark 20 cubic yards gravel. Don't know your actual areas or depths, but it looks like you'll have a huge pile of gravel to reuse or to haul off. Where will the footprint of the stockpile be located? Is the gravel contaminated with oils/greases?

Will fill dirt be stockpiled on-site or dumped directly into your excavation? How will your yellow-iron be contracted mob-fees plus hourly rate?

It seems that several of your other questions can be answered by several test pits in your driveway to find out the stratigraphy and the depths and extent of materials to be removed.

Here's an update on my post. I knew we were a couple of months away from "action" when I first posted my question, so we came up with a "to scale" plan of our lot (never done that before for the WHOLE lot, invaluable!). We used the recent lot survey and had it enlarged at the copy place. We mounted it on foam core board. And we stared at it... . We jotted down the times at which the sun appeared in the morning and when it disappeared in the late afternoon/evening. We did a lot of talking about what we wanted the new area to do for us; enlarged vegetable gaHden for the helpmeet (more direct sunlight), shelter for birds, privacy screening from the road, and a pleasant place to stroll with the resident canid and felines.

We took a little notebook with us when we went to places with interesting landscaping in our area. My own trip to Longwood, Chanticleer, the campus of Swarthmore College, etc. added more fodder... . We jotted down interesting shrubs/small trees, made notes about light and soil conditions, and hauled out the books we have when we returned home. Several tracing paper overlays later, we came up with a tentative "plan". We visited a favorite nursery and wandered around with our little notebook, making notes about what they had that looked really GREAT and what might make a pleasant substitute for things they didn't have. We went home and fine-tuned it. We called the nursery and asked when we might come down to discuss our plan without staffers feeling harried.

We showed up at the appointed time with our "plan" and the tree/shrub guy remarked immediately that it was to scale, lol! (I thought of you guys immediately). We told him we were open to his ideas, but that there were a few things we really wanted, I expressed my concern that the plan looked "skimpy" (had allowed enough space for mature size of the more expensive plants). Nursery guy shook his head and said, NO! allow for the mature size and fill in the gaps with smaller things that can be relocated/shifted as required. Landscaping requires more patience than perennial gardening, longer time to "fill in" nicely and look "established".

The excavator guy is great (time and materials) and he's helped us come up with a basic plan of attack that will allow us to recycle the existing gravel/driveway material (will be a two pronged attack; deal with burying power to the house and stump removal first, then the final "fine-tuning" of the driveway, which will involve the removal of the existing utility pole).

We've hired local contractors we've known for years and we've gone over our plans with them carefully. So far, I have to say, the whole thing has been as stress-free as it could be for two dubs doing their own general contracting. You hire good people to do the things you can't do yourself. You give them the "big picture" and let them do what they know how to do. And you let them ask questions you've overlooked because you don't know how to do what they do. And you figure out a way to address and answer them. You work together!

I'm a little freaked out by it all, but we're pretty hip to what plants need and we know what we like to look at (and it ain't the road!). It will be OK and it will be fun to watch it grow and fill in.

Thanks for your help and good suggestions of things to ponder. It has really helped me focus my attention where it needed to go. I'm feeling lots more confident than I was before.