I happen to have one of these. Original plan was to place a car canopy and I had already placed the gravel. Now I’m going to use a rake, shovel and wheelbarrow to remove most of the gravel and repurpose some of it to a driveway that needs some.
Not looking forward to this but my mistake. Should be good excercise, over a period of time, if it don’t kill me.
Anybody in PDX need some 3/4 minus?
I like the raised beds idea. It offers flexibility with less work to install and less maintenance. There are a number of videos on how to build them on YouTube. They’re a relatively simple build. There are even kits you can buy to make it that much easier.
Actually, I could use some–I have an area coming up to my tiny house that gets real muddy and I was thinking some gravel would work nicely there. Logistics of getting it from there to here, though, might be tricky. I have a pickup but it has a shell on it and I don’t have the muscle to move rock any more.
I’m not sure monkey grass would survive a colder than average USDA zone 5B winter. It looks like it might be hardy to zone 6. You could try zone pushing it in 5B but, from the sounds of it, you wouldn’t want monkey grass to begin with.
Zones catch up to you eventually, and I’ve never had complete success with plants that are intended for warmer zones.
The hosta idea is good. Hostas can tolerate zone 5 very well and they tend to be neat and well behaved. There are a lot of varieties available with different coloring and growth habits. They can make a very nice display. In zone 5 they need a little bit of sun to flourish, so the morning sun would be great for them. They would look pretty around your tree.
If you want to remove the gravel but can’t rake the gravel away away from the tree, then be gentle with heavy equipment. Hopefully the gravel is only a few inches deep. I would simply scrape it off. You could replace it with a few inches of topsoil (or garden soil if you want to make a garden). If the gravel isn’t too deep, you may not need to replace it at all. With weeds growing through, I would expect the gravel to be only a few inches deep. Hopefully.
I’ve got to believe that you have some sort of Cooperative Extension services in Nebraska. This service knows your area and your environment and they can tell you how to avoid damaging your tree. Are the roots shallow and spread out, or are they deep and close to the trunk? They can tell you that. I believe the Extension services for Nebraska are run by UNL.
I use our cooperative extension here and they are very helpful people. Give them a try. They are good at what they do.