My yard has a large section (roughly five by fifteen meters) of gravel where the previous owner of my house parked his boat. Nothing but weeds grow there and even they don’t grow well. I’d like to rehab this spot of ground and get a decent looking lawn but I’m not sure of the best way to go about it. Compounding the issue is that the graveled area in next to a large Pin Oak tree that I don’t want to damage if I can help it.
The obvious solution to me is to bring in a skid loader to dig out the entire area then backfill it with clean soil and reseed. Doing so would easily (not cheaply) get me a good looking lawn but doing so would disrupt probably 40% of the area underneath the tree’s canopy and destroy who knows how many roots. Will this kill the tree? Is it worth killing the tree to get a green lawn?
Another option that was suggested to me was to use the area to install three large raised planting beds. Dig shallow trenches and use landscaping blocks to raise the grade about 35cm. I’d be disrupting far fewer root but those that remain would be buried under a lot more soil. At least some trees don’t really like this either although I don’t know if Pin Oaks are vulnerable to this.
How would you rehab like bit of lawn and is it worth losing the tree to do it?
Maybe I’m putting the cart before the horse by mentioning plant choice this early in the process, but in terms of plant choices, it might help to know at least roughly where you are.
For instance, were I faced with this situation, my native indolence would have me contemplating getting a hardy low-maintenance ground cover instead of a lawn (such as star jasmine, but I don’t know if your growing region would support that plant).
Why lawn? How about raised beds for flowers or veg instead? Much more useful and immensely prettier and you can put shade loving plants under the oak tree. You can leave the gravel right where it is and have nice paths around your beds to work from. Good drainage, too.
Lawn requires so much work and a lot of resources. It certainly isn’t worth killing a tree! I’d do what SmartAleq said, and depending on where it is in your yard, it might be nice to incorporate a sitting area, too.
Are you anywhere near a college or university? We had issues with the treatment some of the trees in our yard had received prior to us buying the house and the arborist from the university was willing to come out and look at them and give us advice, for free. Even if you had to pay, getting advice from an arborist might be worth doing to keep your tree healthy.
Will monkey grass push out goat heads and cheat grass?
I don’t have a suggestion for kaylasdad except very careful what you do with regards to the tree. My parents killed the oak tree in their yard when they put down pavers to build a new patio. They only covered 30% or less of the area under the canopy. It took years, but it did happen
Go with the planters. Pin oaks have a shallow root system, so digging out the gravel bed would probably harm the tree. But the gravel will make a nice drainage base for a set of above-ground planters. Use them for vegetables, flowers or whatever.
Question: Does the oak shade the gravel all day? That will make a difference in what you plant in the beds.
Monkey grass will push out your in-laws if left to it’s own devices. But it does do well under trees and with poor soil. It can cover a multitude of sins. I bet it would grow right in that gravel. I planted it along the fence beside my drive. Mr.Wrekker mows close on both sides of the fence to keep it in check.
I got clumps of it from a cemetery they were cleaning it out of. They dug up rooted plants. I asked they said, sure to take all I wanted, and warned me. I never knew how pervasive it was. It does look good under the fence. I do absolutely nothing to/for it except the mowing.
Look up liriope or lilytufts.
You’d want to put strawberries in the sunniest parts of the area and go for moreshade tolerant, delicate berries (try our Oregon Hood variety, they’re a life changer) in a matted row method of coverage. Mulch with crushed hazel nut shells if you have snails and slugs and with a minimum of attention you should have good strawberries for years.
Big advantage of planters is that you have much better control over the soil composition that you don’t have with a big tree to work around. Those roots suck everything up and you can get some pH issues around oak trees–live oaks especially just don’t allow much of anything to grow beneath their canopy. If you have mobility issues you can raise the beds to be really deep and put heavy planks around the top of the bed so you can sit comfortably to weed and cultivate. Depending on your budget you have such a huge range of building materials from purely utilitarian to sheer luxury. You can also install drip irrigation so you can water what needs it without unduly disturbing the oak.
Any way we could get a picture of the area to be able to judge what might work there? Preferably taken in sunlight but during the shadiest part of the day. Sounds like raised beds and/or planters could be a lot of fun and provide a goodly amount of free food too.
I’m not terribly concerned about what I may or not be able to plant in the area. Once I get to that stage, I’ll consult with local experts to plan that out. Right now, the question is what is likely to be less damaging to the tree: placing large, raised beds this close to it or excavating down about 15cm to remove gravel from underneath a third of the canopy. One way or another, I’m going to try to try to improve the looks of the area by removing or covering the gravel. If the tree survives, that’s good. If it’s not likely to then I’ll have the landscaper remove it.
You pose it as a binary issue, but how about an intermediate solution? Rake the loose gravel, then top with 5 inches fill dirt, 3 inches topsoil, then sod or seeds.
This- although we covered a cement circle and only used about 4 inches of loam prior to seeding and then overseeding after the first round cropped up. You’d never know now that the cement circle is under there.
I live in zone 5B myself. I’d personally go with the raised beds, and do not use hardware cloth unless you want to plant any kind of invasive species. Hostas are great for shady areas; the darker-green the leaves, the less full sun they will tolerate and the more they will thrive in a place where nothing else grows.
At this time of year, you can get them for free if you ask around, because this is the time to divide them.
I considered this and it’s probably what I will do if my budget is tighter than I suspect. My problem with this is that it’s going to look like what it is, a half-assed cover up. Yes it will be better than what I have now but it’s still going to bug me. I’d rather have a more seamless, professional look.
I’ve been confronted with something like this. In my case substitute a mature large hedgerow for the tree and a 12" hardpan surface layer along the row.
I hired a tried-and-true backhoe guy to come in and remove the hardpan. This guy was a wizard. He used his small digging bucket to scrape gravel in small units. When we encountered roots I thought big enough to preserve we skipped over them. Once the hardpan was gone those remaining areas were pretty easy to manually clean out. The manual cleanout took as long as the backhoe part but it was worth it to get rid of the hardpan.
BTW, I did plant grass there. Many people think of grass as a high maintenance area but five minutes with a lawn mower twice a month sure beats maintaining flower and shrubbery beds.
