I live in a rural area and have a gravel drive and turn around. I’ve been using Round Up concentrate mixed to correct proportions in a tank sprayer.
It eventually kills the grass and weeds that sprout there, but takes several weeks to work.
Is there a product that works faster? I seem to remember a product from years back that claimed “visible results in 24 hours” or something like that.
The area is flat and not near any water source, so runoff is not an issue.
Tell me your experiences please.
Which Round Up? I’ve always had good luck with Round Up Weed and Grass Killer. Anything I spray it on is usually noticeably wilting within a few hours and dead/brown/dried up within a day or two.
One of the big brands, I’d swear, had something called Total Vegetation Killer that worked within hours. I’m curious if that’s what you’re thinking of from a while back. I’m guessing whatever I’m thinking of has since been rebranded as either Round Up’s Weed and Grass Killer or Ortho Ground Clear. It wouldn’t surprise me if Round Up changed the name (but not the ingredients) after all the glyphosate attention.
Also, gasoline.
Fire.
Dawn & vinegar mixed into a spray bottle
There are things that work faster than Roundup, but most of them have fallen out of favor - if not actually pulled off the market - because their drawbacks range from bad for the environment to dangerous to use.
2,4-D or Tordon (picloram) would be effective on your broadleaf weeds, but ineffective on most grasses.
A heavy dose of saltwater will kill off vegetation in 10-14 days, but you’ll probably get regrowth.
Ortho Ground Clear is supposed to work quickly and is relatively safe to use, but I’ve seen complaints that it’s inconsistent. Still, it might be worht a try if you’re dissatisfied with the Roundup family.
I remember 45 years ago, or there about, a friend used Triox to spray along his chain link fence. Had a nice clear dirt strip about 8" wide. Never had to trim along the fence.
I see that Ortho Ground Clear is, or contains Triox.
It can also depend on the plants. You said grass “and weeds” without being specific. In my experience, blackberry and morning glory shrug off Round-Up like it’s barely an inconvenience to them.
I had excellent results with Roundup on a very aggressive shrub that I had cut down twice and that kept regrowing from the stump. When I say “aggressive” I mean fast-growing to the point that it was soon as tall as my house, and when I say “cut down” I mean with a chainsaw. I had tried various home remedies poured on the stump and none of them worked. I could have sworn that some of them made it grow even faster!
I don’t recall this Roundup formulation having any specific designation; it was just “Roundup”. I do remember it being under special legal restrictions, where it was kept under lock and key and you were given a document that told you what you were and were not allowed to use it for. Whereas other herbicides were just out in the open and sold without restriction.
Anyway, after spraying it on new growths where the shrub was trying to regrow for yet a third time, the growths were visibly shriveled the next day. Incredibly, a month or two later it started sprouting again! Another dose of Roundup finally killed it off for good. This was either last summer or the summer before. At some point I’ll have the stump either pulled or ground down. Meanwhile all the “good” plants in the vicinity were unaffected and are thriving now that they’re not being choked by this giant shrub-like invasive tree. Roundup did the job. I’m not sure that a less potent herbicide would have been as successful, or that you can find something legal that’s better than Roundup. In fact, because of its potency and alleged environmental impact, Roundup is banned altogether in the European Union.
Don’t forget to add salt.
We, like the OP, have a large gravel drive in which weed growth is a constant problem, and this is what we use these days. I make sure the salt is dissolved in a small amount of hot water in the sprayer before adding the dish soap and vinegar.
It seems to work at least as well as Round-Up, which we used to use, but Mrs. solost was worried about glyphosate concerns. Not to mention buying Round-Up in large quantities was, I think, quite a bit more expensive than buying bulk vinegar, soap and salt from Costco.
Roundup (glyphosate) works by inhibiting some enzyme in the plant’s metabolism, causing it to eventually wither and die. This is why it’s called a systemic herbicide - the herbicide can be sprayed on the leaves and will take effect where the enzymes are active- in the roots, I think. It takes a while though.
What you want is a “burndown” herbicide, meaning it’s immediately lethal to any part of the plant it’s sprayed on, but not the rest of the plant. One that I’ve used is “Captain Jack’s Deadweed Brew” from Bonide. It’s some sort of fatty acid blend that does a bang-up job of killing grass and weeds you spray it on, but it doesn’t kill the roots, etc…
If your problem is specifically grass encroaching on your gravel drive, I’d look at getting something with Clethodim in it, like GrassOut Max. Clethodim is a grass-specific herbicide that will kill grasses and nothing else. So you can (and I have) sprayed an entire ornamental bed and only killed the encroaching Bermuda grass.
While this is correct for glyphosate per se, Roundup comes in different formulations that give it different properties, including selective and non-selective versions. Now that I look more closely at the stuff I used, which was non-selective, the packaging advertises “quick-acting foam”, “rain-proof in 2 hours”, and “results in 24 hours”, and it did indeed start wilting the new growths by next day.
Some Milkweed, as well as general grasses that spread from the yard area. No bushes or sprouting trees
Boiling water might work, and would have no persistent environmental impact at all.
We buy special vinegar that is very concentrated. Your not even supposed to get any on your hands. I get it at Amazon. Seems to work pretty well, but not over night well and may require repeat applications.
It’s a chemical like everything else, but I’m a little hesitant to use things like Round Up.
My gf uses RoundUp on our gravel driveway and it works well. She follows label directions for mixing it and studies the weather forecast closely. She likes to spray after a few dry days with no rain in sight for as long as possible. This year her timing was impeccable; she sprayed a few days into what ended up being a few weeks of no rain.
Unless that was a weird mutant Canadian version of Roundup which does not exist elsewhere, it’s bizarre to think of a glyphosate product being under lock of key while other herbicides are freely sold.
Alternatives to Roundup that are sold to homeowners include Spectracide Weed Stop, which contains 2, 4-D and dicamba and thus is something I wouldn’t want to deal with.*
Long-term weed control in a gravel driveway would probably require a professional applicator using Ground Zero Search & Destroy™**, which isn’t something I’d be comfortable around either.
*the only commercial herbicide I’ve used in many years was on a patch of poison ivy by the garage that stubbornly came back despite vinegar applications. A shot of Roundup finally took it down.
**a product that probably doesn’t exist, at least under that name.
I didn’t pay much attention to what those other herbicides were, TBH. What I did find in some quick Googling is that 2,4-D and dicamba had their approvals for use in Canada extended in 2021 after a reevaluation of all regulated pesticides. However, that doesn’t mean they’re available off the shelf without restriction, or available in all provinces, or available to ordinary consumers at all.
Ontario has banned both glyphosate and 2,4-D as well as other herbicides “for cosmetic use”, which means pretty much any use that a typical homeowner would want them for. I’m surprised that Roundup was available at all, locked up or not. I’m sure that none of the herbicides out in the open for anyone to grab contained any of the scary substances you mention, regardless of the promises on the labels. For instance – just to show how confusing things can get – there’s a product called Roundup “Dual Action” Weed and Grass Killer (may only be available in the US) that contains triclopyr, fluazifop-P-butyl, diquat dibromide, and imazapic, but no glyphosate whatsoever. There’s another product called Roundup “Advanced” Weed and Grass Killer that contains … vinegar! Seriously. Acetic acid. That’s all it contains.
Sounds like the Glacial Acetic Acid I used 25 years ago for photographic purposes. I think it was like 98% pure.