Bringing up old rock / gravel...want to restore parking lot and driveway...Land Plane or box blade or?

[FERLING]

This is part of my drive way.

 

[Buckeye Guy]

I had great results recently on my mothers driveway using nothing but a landscape rake. Brought all of the gravel back up to the top and looks like a brand new driveway. Didn't add any weight to it, just made many passes, first angled toward the center, and then angled to the edge. Worked great

 

[nyone]

Thanks, will a land plane accomplish the same thing? I'm attracted to the land plane for what seems to be its ability to bring up stones and smooth them out as you go. Ive watched some youtube videos where it appears to restore gravel driveways pretty nicely (and easily, which is a plus for a newbie like me haha)



Cool, thats what I was thinking too. I think I could get rid of some grassy spots fairly easily.

Thanks for the tip, I wouldnt have thought that on my own, but it makes alot of sense!

Never used a land plane but judging by what I see them being used on there really just for smoothing out surfaces. They really arnt going to dig in.

With a box blade on my gravel driveway I typicaly lower the teeth all the way down and cut to loosen up the material then extend the top link or retract the teeth to smooth things out. Even with my 500-600lb 6ft box blade if I didnt have scarifiers I wouldnt have much material to move around. With a 6ft box blade its roughly 2-4 trips up and back on the driveway to loosen/fill and smooth.

I have turns on a gravel driveway so the gravel does migrate alot. A landscape rake angled does work less for this but dosnt loosen material very well with out many many passes.

 

[YanmarFever]

I use to use a 6' blade with 350 lbs of tractor weights attached to it. I would drag the driveway a day after it rained so that the ground was kind of soft and the blade would flip the gravel back up onto the surface. The trick was a lot of weight on it.
Anyone here that has been to my house saw that I had a big investment in gravel. Of course it helped that the gravel pit was 2 miles away!

 

[Cycledude]

Hello, Looking for some advice here. On our property we have a few buildings and a gravel parking lot / driveway. Over the years it has gotten more muddy / soily and the top layer is alot of gravel fines now. Over the years it has gotten worse to where there is alot more grass then there used to be. When I was clearing snow this past winter I dug in a bit too deep in a couple spots and I could see there is nice rock just underneath everything (see 4th picture). I ended up finding one of those old ariel photo paintings that were popular back in the day of our property, and I can see the parking lot and driveway was all stone (see last picture). So it appears all the stone is still there, just a bit buried / overgrown.

What Id like to do, if possible, is bring the stone back up to the top. I've tried to research this and it seems like a land plane or box blade with scarifiers would do this...I think.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Would my idea work? Any tips or tricks?
What implement would be the best to do this? I was looking at a 7ft woods land plane with the scarifiers for this.

I did get a quote to get it all redone with gravel but it was really expensive since its a large area so I am looking for more affordable alternatives.

Well many of them rocks look to be to big to have on the top surface of your driveway. It looks kind of low anyway so If it was mine I’d probably just have it all covered with a nice coat of new gravel.

 

[jyoutz]

I know it’s expensive, but I think topping with new gravel or asphalt millings is your best option. Those subsurface rocks are providing a solid base and topping that base would make for a very solid parking area. Otherwise you will be disturbing the solid base and the rock will get pushed back down in a few years.

 

[Gator6x4]

What you are wanting to do will require time and patience. Use a Landscape Rake. The goal being to bring the gravel to the surface with a limited amount of soil or dirt. Lightly go over the drive and parking area prior to a rain being forecasted. The rain will wash the soil away from the gravel. Repeat this process when the drive dries and each time before a rain is forecast. Don't think you can speed the process up if they are giving rain for 3-4 days in a row. You will only pack the gravel back down into the moisten soil.

You might also give some thought to spraying the driveway and parking area with Roundup prior to starting. Also consider not throwing grass clipping onto the driveway or parking area when mowing. Grass clippings it seems will sprout over night when throw on a gravel driveway.

 

[FERLING]

What you are wanting to do will require time and patience. Use a Landscape Rake. The goal being to bring the gravel to the surface with a limited amount of soil or dirt. Lightly go over the drive and parking area prior to a rain being forecasted. The rain will wash the soil away from the gravel. Repeat this process when the drive dries and each time before a rain is forecast. Don't think you can speed the process up if they are giving rain for 3-4 days in a row. You will only pack the gravel back down into the moisten soil.

You might also give some thought to spraying the driveway and parking area with Roundup prior to starting. Also consider not throwing grass clipping onto the driveway or parking area when mowing. Grass clippings it seems will sprout over night when throw on a gravel driveway.

Sounds like a person that has been there and done that. I have also. The last thing you want to do is loosen your base. Loosing the top layer of rock is all you need to do. After a rain it looks like you added a single layer of rock on top.