Garden Gravel Nightmare

[TheBeesKnee]

It appears that the previous owners of my house put gravel down in the garden without any kind of barrier.

I've discovered this by digging little patches and it's EVERYWHERE.

DP has been sieving it but there's so much. It's all buried under a thin layer of dirt and even the grass doesn't root properly, it just comes up in clumps.

What can we do about this, or are we doomed to sieving?!

How much gravel is it - how deep is it? If it was thin wouldn't you just turn it all over a lot to end up with a very well draining soil?

I can see this might be a problem under grass, but like pp says, in a bed you could just dig it in. So I would focus on clearing the area you want to put grass seed on. Could go for a smaller area of lawn and buy turf to go on top of the gravel-soil?

Also, could you wash it? Put a whole load in a large bucket/bin, fill with water then the soil will dissolve and the gravel will sink. Separate, tip soil water out and start again. Never tried, might work.

ChristopherTracy

How much gravel is it - how deep is it? If it was thin wouldn't you just turn it all over a lot to end up with a very well draining soil?

It's a couple of inches deep.

I hadn't thought of turning it - the soil underneath is quite thick, sticky and clay-like, do you think turning the soil would help with that or make things worse?

Up until now I've lived in flats and the most expensive I had with gardening was a few pots on the balcony!

Mixing it in with the sticky clay soil would be a good idea actually, and improve drainage. You probably need to add a fair bit of organic matter as well.

they might have put it in on purpose to help the soil drain. clay soil can be much too sticky and grass won't grow well in it.

I'd just add lots of compost and mix everything up as much as possible.

UniversalTruth

I can see this might be a problem under grass, but like pp says, in a bed you could just dig it in.

The garden is approximately 4x8m and I wanted to have a veggie patch and plant some lavender around the borders and leave a small strip of lawn/paving stones towards the end of the garden as there's an odd triangle patch beyond the trees which I'm not sure what to do with yet.

Alright, off I go to research how best to do this... Do I need to hire a donkey?

You could do raised beds for your veg.

Could you build raised beds on top of it ? - if its really clay that might be the best way of dealing with it. Or a mix of raised beds and beds.

Or dig it in with manure, spent mushroom compost and any other kind of mulchy stuff. Hard work though.

My sister's house was like this. It was the estate show home and the builders gravelled it then just threw turf over the top. When they bought it a few years later the gravel was still there. The grass grew ok but in the end they had the garden landscaped, and dug it all out with machinery (big lawn) and redone.

raised beds for veg and gravel loving herbs for the gravel?

If you're not tied to the lawn idea, then I would definitely do raised beds with a gravel garden. For the gravel garden I would dig it in as best you can then put down membrane liner. Could have some big pots with lavender in on the gravel - I don't think they would like clay, need free draining soil, plus you can put them where they will get max sun.

If you’re willing to start from scratch then rotovate it.

UniversalTruth

If you're not tied to the lawn idea, then I would definitely do raised beds with a gravel garden.

This would look great, however, there are 5 trees in the garden. There were 7 originally and I want to get rid of a further 2-3, but not all of them. The leaves and needles look a bit messy at the moment but I'd imagine it would look even worse mixed in with gravel.

Lavender should be fine on the gravel, just dig in it a bit so there's some earth mixed with it but not too much, it should thrive.

I had this too. I tried sieving it but what to do with all the gravel. In the end I built raised veg beds on the least affected part and put decking over the rest. I planted lavenders and grasses round it. It is now one of my favorite spots in the garden. Never ever ever ever have gravel in the garden it is a night mare.

Ahh I feel your pain! The previous owners of our house loved gravel, and pebbles. They had dogs and big trees in the garden, and clearly had never tried to garden properly.

We sieved. It was an absolute nightmare, it took weeks. I would kneel and pick out the largest stones, then sieve. We had 20 small bags of dirty gravel we had to pay to dispose of.

I'm glad though. Improved the soil massively and has meant the plants grow well.

We shifted 16 Square meters of gravel with a badly degraded barrier. It was an awful job. Raking it into piles and then shoveling was most effective. We have about the same amount left in borders but I'm waiting for next year because its a bloody horrible job.

If you’re thinking of raised beds then I’d fill the bottom of them with some of the gravel (lower than about 30 cm). It will help fill them and with drainage.

It’s amazing what will grow in gravelly soil. In some places in our garden we have lawn over about 80% gravel but you’d never know. I reckon lawn will grow just fine on it. Same with lavender, they need well drained soil not heavy clay.

If you want to separate some of it then buy a sheet of fine weldmesh. Rest it on a frame (eg your raised bed), shovel the gravel on top and hose it down. I’ve done the sieving way and it’s backbreaking!

Use the extra gravel as underlay for paving stones or as a weed suppressant, but put underlay down first of course.

It sounds like previous owner was trying to improve drainage. We’ve very sticky clay here, too, and I’m imagining your soil is heavy enough to sculpt like plasticine. If that’s the case, then I’d dig in the gravel and compost/manure. Personally I’d not think that plants that like the sharp drainage of a gravel garden would do well with a clay/gravel mix, but I’m going on my own plasticine textured soil here! You could always try couple of herbs (lavender and rosemary?) and see how they do before committing!

This would look great, however, there are 5 trees in the garden. There were 7 originally and I want to get rid of a further 2-3, but not all of them. The leaves and needles look a bit messy at the moment but I'd imagine it would look even worse mixed in with gravel. On the other hand, you might struggle to grow a decent lawn under trees. What about spreading bark?