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Need help on getting rid of weeds on driveway (pic)

14 years ago

I desperately need some help on how to control/get rid of the weeds in the rocky area on both sides of the driveway. Link to pic:

{{gwi:1348799}}

The driveway is about 300 feet long, with rock areas on both sides of driveway (9 feet wide each), so we are talking about 5400 sq feet. There is a protective weed fabric and it is covered with rocks about 2 inches thick. There are about 20 mature trees (locust, 20 feet high) planted just on border of rock area, there is no doubt that roots from trees are underneath the rocky area as the dripline is reaching the concrete driveway.

It has been about 12 years since this rock has been put in and in some places quite a substantial amount of soil (1/4-1/2" thick) has been washed on top of the protective weed fabric so the weeds have found the way to implant in this thin layer of soil.

I tried to re-do the portion of rocky area last year (removed rocks, put new weed fabric in, covered back with rocks). This helped somewhat, but this year I am noticing that some weeds even managed to establish on brand new fabric :( So re-doing the whole driveway with new fabric is probably not an option due to size and somewhat questionalble outcome (pretty sure it will be back to same problem 2-3 years from now).

Most of the weed control we do is manually pulling the weeds and applying post emergent (glyphosate). It is a very time consuming process due to the size of the area, yet a month or so later they all come back.

Can somebody recommend a better solution ? Will applying pre-emergent going to help ? If yes then what kind ? I am concerned that applying some type of chemical pre-emergent is going to damage roots of the trees :( I've read a lot about Corn Gluten pre-emergent, do you think this might help ? If yes, whould you recommend an affordable place to buy it from.

Any advice will be appreciated !!!

Thanks, Davie.

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Comments (7)

woodside
14 years ago
Concrete?

Either that or start a wildflower bed on both sides. It will be beautiful and low maintenance! Think of them as welcome weeds!
vladn2000
Original Author
14 years ago
Concrete ? Let me see: 4500 sq feet at $10 per sq foot will just set me down for $45K, perhaps I can get a second mortgage to get rid of weeds. On the other side, my driveway is going to be about 30 feet wide so a couple of 18 wheelers can safely pass through :)

Wildflowers ? Already have 2.5 acres of those, but would like to preserve a clean rock area.

Is there a better solution with applying pre-emergents without damaging tree roots ?

Thanks !
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gailey
14 years ago
Get yourself a Weed Dragon. Works great and also fries weed seeds, which weedkiller won't touch.

Here is a link that might be useful: Weed Dragon
hortster
14 years ago
Gotta go with gailey! Burn 'em or nail 'em with glysophate - burning is better in your situration. MUCH cheaper than $10 per ft., although here it is more like $5. Bucks will buy a lot of propane and, even if hired, labor.
hortster
vladn2000
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks for Weed Dragon advice ! It certainly is a lot of fun to burn the weeds up and it certainly works much faster than Roundup :) I will carefully consider if I want to go this route for 2 reasons:

1. Fire safety, it is very dry here in CO in summer so this might be dengerous to use.

2. Just like Roundup this method is post-emergent control and due to the size of the area to be controlled still going to present with same issue of being time consuming.

I've been looking around some other pre-emergent control options and found a product called Preen (available from Amazon, Home Depot, Walmart, etc) -- this product is safe to use around trees and provides up to 3 months protection. So I think I will probably end-up with some combination of pre-emergent control (Preen, CGM) + Roundup/Weed Dragon for post emergent control -- even if I can get 50% weed reduction with Preen this will make post-emergent control so much easier.

Thanks everybody for your help !! Please let me know if you have any other suggestion.

Davie.
maifleur01
14 years ago
Just so you know Preen should not be used more than a couple of times. They were to put a warning on the contain but I have not seen it yet. It does build up in the soil but there are other problems. You may want to check the companies site for more information.
vladn2000
Original Author
14 years ago
If you mean twice a year then this is fine, first Preen application on 3/15, second on 6/15. Then temperatures drop here in fall, so no weed problem till next spring :)

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