We ended up putting pea gravel over our torn out deck as an interim measure until we could afford to put down stone. Its very miserable on bare feet, and it became the neighborhood cats' litter box- yuck! We're going to use cocoa mulch in our roses beds instead of tanbark. Its a small round and flattish shape, and it smells heavenly. It is not edible of course, I'm not sure children like think its really chocolate and try to eat it?? To see pics of our recent landscaping project and some pics of Roses we grow here, ck out my Picture Trail: careytearose Here is a link that might be useful: look at Landscaping Projects 2007, Favourite ROSES We Grow albums

It might help to first determine the amount of material you need to have removed. Measure your yard and calculate the square footage. Figure you have about 1 ton of material per 100 square feet of yard (roughly). This will give you an idea of whether bulk trash pickup will work for you. Im guessing they will only take so much at one time. I have also put gravel and such in my waste container for pickup but you can only get a couple hundred pounds in there at once and depending on the amount of material you have, that method could take weeks or months to get rid of it all. Another option, as you noted, is to get a roll-off box and fill it yourself. A company like Waste Management can provide this service. I would think you can just put the material in the box and not bag it up but you may want to inquire further on that issue. A one time roll-off delivery and dump will cost you about 500 bucks. The next option is to hire a clean-up company to come in and get it all out of there for you. This is the most expensive option because now you are paying for labor as well as the dump fees. The up-side is you dont have to deal with the material yourself and they will get it clean down to the soil grade for you. If you get to the point where you want to explore this option further I can recommend a few companys that provide this service.

please listen to me. I have 18 years experience with gravel yards. If you do NOT want weeds to grown, you must go with the 1/4 minus size granite. This size packs down like concrete, it must be put in so the depth is at least 4 inches thick. It packs down over time with rain, but what you need to do instead of waiting for that is to wet the entire area (I do sections at a time) and I mean wet it down good with a spray nozzle on the hose. We have a actual roller my husband made that is a big metal drum with a handle on it. We fill it with water and then we roll it over the wet granite a few times in going in different directions, it packs it like concrete. Once the rains come, it packs it even harder. you need the 4 inch or more thickness as weeds cannot grown thru it. We do get some small that is just killed doing spot treaments, but never do they overtake the granite.Larger granite, decorative rock, etc.. DOES NOT PACK down, you will contantly get weeds and grasses coming thru and in weed season, you will be overwhelmed with them. Send me your email and I can send you pics of our rental yard that we are presently bringing in loads of granite. We have a guy deliver a ton at at a time, property is over 10,000 square feet, so we have work to do. Luckily we have a neighbor with a tractor, so we spread with that and then some shovel/broom work to level it out and then wet it and pack it. Our own yard is done the same way. Pattiwatti1@cox.net

The common yellow oxalis we have here has tiny "bulbules" (sp?), which lurk 12 -18 inches under the ground. You can easily pull up the plants, of course, but those tiny bulb things stay under the soil, and up it comes again. I once had a gardener who decided to eradicate it from a flower bed which is about 12 feet long and 6 feet wide. He actually dug up the top 2 feet of soil, and sifted it by hand to get all of the tiny bulbs out. That worked for the first year, but by 2-3 years after he did that, back the oxalis came. So, being lazy, what I do is just admire it in the Spring, except where it is trying to smother other plants. Then just pull it out around those plants. By late Spring here it has died down, and I pretend it is gone. Of course, it comes up again the next Spring. It is one of our first blooming plants to bloom (starts Jan/Feb), so I just regard it as such and let it be mostly. One of my cats likes to eat it (we used to eat it as children - we called it "sour grass"). Jackie