We have a big, approximately triangular, area of gravel in front of
our five garages (an embarrassingly large number!). I've fought a never
ending battle with the weeds on it over the eight years or so we've
lived here and we're now at the stage where we have a little time,
'space' and money to tackle the problem more permanently.

Weedkiller is not very effective for a couple of reasons I think.
Firstly our land is very sandy so, when it rains, anything in the
soil is rapidly washed downwards, not to mention that the gravel is on
quite a significant slope so that aids drainage too. Secondly the
sorts of weeds we get are pretty tough and well able to survive on the
very poor sandy soil around us so a gravel drive is almost their
native environment!

The major problems with the gravel drive a-

Weeds (as described above)

The slope, the gravel has a decided tendency to migrate down the
slope and then down the (even steeper) concrete ramp that runs
down the to private road/track we live on.

In some places the edging is rather indeterminate, I think the
shape has been changed at several times in its history.

The sheer size of the area, it's approximately a right angled
triangle with the two shorter sides being around 50ft and 100ft or
so I would guess.

The gravel gets everywhere and isn't terribly good for man powered
(and/or two wheeled) vehicles.


So, what alternatives are there and/or how can we rejuvenate the
drive?

We don't really want to pave the whole area, it would be out of
character with the rest of the house. Are there any other things one
could try? Is there any way we can try and reduce the way the gravel
moves down the slope?

If we decided to stay with gravel then presumably a membrane of some
sort is the way to keep the weeds at bay. What sort of equipment
would one need to scrape up the existing gravel, lay the membrane and
then relay the gravel?

--
Chris Green