I think it is the least bad option.

How long is your driveway? This would not be an option on just my 200 foot driveway but you COULD put down one of them black plastic weedbarrier tarps then pour the rock over it. If you get new rocks every several years that should about how long the tarp lasts.

Plastic under gravel under vehicular traffic is asking for disaster. You will have a colossal mess in 10 days.

Glyphosate is your best option. Unless you want to try white vinegar - but if your driveway is very long, vinegar application would get tedious.

Well, I've just been reading over on cleaning tips, that a steam cleaner can be used to kill weeds. That was enough for me. I ordered one immediately!! I hope it works.

Driveway is very long. Maybe I could try the vinegar in the areas closest to the trees and glyphosate on the other areas. We tried the weed torch on our brick path with ok results but again too small for this application.....Has anyone used pre-emergent in this type of situation?

there used to be a product that was supposed to last 3 years .. triox something or another ...

its been decades since i saw it .. as i didnt have a long driveway to use it on ...

perhaps one of our friends has a better recollection.. as the link doesnt seem to say its a 3 year product ...

when using a hand pump tank ... understand that if you develop large droplets .. thru pressure and tip adjustment ... then those droplets.... fall to the ground thru gravity ... ergo .... you can spray without wind being a big problem ...

on the other hand.. if you pressurize the tank to the point of create a french perfume like mist.. well ... it will drift on the wind ... go figure ...

proper application is all in your hands .... practice with water.. until you can do it properly ...

its also pickling season ... and vinegar is on sale ... and it can be a plant killer ...

btw .... thinking outside the box.. why do you need a clean driveway.. out on the ranch??? .. is this home.. or a vacation place???

ken

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=triox+3+year+weed+killer&t=ffcm&ia=web

"Maybe I could try the vinegar in the areas closest to the trees and glyphosate on the other areas." I would be more concerned with frequent use of the vinegar changing the soil pH and harming the trees than I would with glyphosate causing harm to the trees as long as you don't spray on the trees. Use large drop size, place wand close to weeds and do at non-breezy times.

Or do as I do - pretty much just live with it. I hand weed some and occasionally use a bit of glyphosate or just clippers if it's getting too tall by the doors, but I live in a rural area so it doesn't need to be groomed in a pristine manner, and so most of my driveway weeds are untouched and compaction and car tires keep them low. I have considered corn gluten, but never tried it as a preemergent. No interest in regular preemergents.

Or you could pave a small area near the house and let the rest do as it will.

I can't imagine a propane weed torch being "too small" for this sort of usage. It may just take some time initially to address what's growing now but once that's addressed, it will take only minimal torch attention to keep on top of things.

And I'd have to wonder if torching would even take more time than spot spraying with RoundUp or similar product. Seems the attention required for any given area would be about the same although I have never done a side by side test.

A number of years ago, I worked at a very large retail nursery (7.5 acres), most of which had a graveled surface. The owner routinely torched the gravel to control weeds - using any sort of herbicide was simply not an option, given all the valuable plants in such close proximity. So unless your drive is larger than several acres I am not convinced that torching is not a very viable - and the most environmentally friendly - option.

properly applied ... per labeled instruction .. i really dont see how RU or anything would impact trees ...

ken

Ken, it does, routinely! All sorts of evidence to support it and even more likely if it is used repeatedly. There are many formulations of RU, some of which have a much broader and long lasting application. But probably the biggest issue is with drift, which is very difficult to control, if at all, and has an ability to affect anything within close proximity. Obviously not a situation you want in a retail plant nursery

The jury is out on glyphosate. There are issues associated with using it, not the least of which is the evolution of glyphosate-resistant weeds, who then become holy terrors because they have no competition. I would not use it lightly. We have miles of gravel and we still spray in some places, but we also have minimum wage laborers chopping the weeds out before they go to seed. That may well be cheaper than the glyphosate.

I have quite a large gravel area and I get some Preen down early each spring then hand weed once, then use glyphosate very sparingly. I still bend over and pull things by hand nearly every day as it just makes more sense to me. Over the years the compaction from driving on it has cut down the weeds tremendously- it's easier every year.

IMO the key is to keep on top of it- once you let it get away from you it is daunting and very hard to get back under control.

Yes I still do a lot of hand-pulling too. The other thing that you can do is put down something like Cargill's Dust-off, which in my experience (the one time we used it) killed every plant it came in contact with. Unfortunately it came in contact with the ornamental plants on the sides of the drives. That's why we never used it again! And keeping on top of it is exactly right. Two-three years of getting them out before they go to seed really helps.

I think the idea with the torch is that we will have to change out that tank before we are even getting anywhere with it. We probably bought it too small. I haven't actually tried it myself, just going with my husbands word on that. The strip of weeds that typically shows up down the middle of the drive doesn't bother me that much, we mow it anyway, but there is an area up closer to the house that is filled in with tough, low growing weeds that would be impossible to hand pull. That area has a flower bed near it on one side and my newly planted oak trees on the other. My husband sprayed it earlier this year and it bothered the oaks. (He swears there was no drift but obviously there was!) Thanks everyone for their thoughts, it does help to hear your opinions!!!

What ever you do don't spend the money to put landscape cloth, or plastic under the gravel in your driveway. What happens is that for a year or so the cloth keeps the vegetation in check. The dirt blows into the gravel, the weeds will start taking root. and in 6 years you will never know you made the effort.

The previous owner of our house put the landscape cloth under the gravel in the driveway. By the time I bought the house there were all kinds of weeds growing in the gravel. I learned about the landscape cloth when they removed the gravel to put the concrete driveway in.

You have a similar effect with a concrete driveway. Over time dirt collects in the stress groves that they place in the cement and before you know it your have weeds growing in the groves.

There's a bit of FUD here.

Is a massive amt. of glyphosate on the roots of a tree going to cause problems? Possibly. Is a once or twice a year use at appropriate dilution levels on a roadway going to cause problems? No, absolutely not! But it's not the main thing you need anyhow.

Use a correct (spot) application once to kill any live weeds. Then, 2 or 4 times a year depending on climate, use a broadcast application of something pre-emergent like Surflan, to keep SEEDS FROM GERMINATING IN THE FIRST PLACE. Believe me, there are golf courses where that is applied for years, and years, and it doesn't affect nearby mature plant growth. And that's over the huge area of greens. Along a typical 12' driveway, you'd be applying much less.

(and btw, people act like spray drift is some 'phantom menace' that can spread several feet from where you are intending to spray. It just doesn't happen with glyphosate unless you're being an idiot, or using a high pressure electrical sprayer and being careless. I finally had it happen for the first time this spring - because I was being an idiot. And it was in a very, very specific spot/situation where I was spraying the edge of a stone retaining wall and forgot that just under the edge of the wall, invisible to me at that position, was a small rhododendron. So, it was more about forgetting where something was, not some sneaky malfeasance on the part of the product! *OTOH* the vapor drift of ester chemicals IS a very real thing, and can be quite scary, but that's not this discussion. There is no ester of glyphosate)

Just keep the stuff out of the water supply! Some of those pre-emergents are toxic to aqatic life.

Yes, well obviously one is legally obligated to follow the label instructions. (someone is up early this morning!)

and btw I was talking about PLAIN glyphosate. Not any long lasting formulation containing anything besides glyphosate.

"tough, low growing weeds that would be impossible to hand pull"

Un-possible.

They've just been there a long time.

David I just got back from the East coast. I'm still on EDT! And for some reason my iPad has me logged in as Form and Foliage and I can't figure out why. It's still me...

Theoretically glyphosate breaks down quickly in the soil, but I make sure that whatever I use (which is virtually nothing) does not drain into any runoff that goes to the street.

raymondranch,

I can't imagine any kind of operation of any size without a Solo backpack, one is usually dedicated for herbicide only. Fencerows, sidewalks, parking lots, tombstones. Growers routinely use them in between poly houses and walkways.