How Do You Get Driveway Gravel Out of Grassy Areas?

[Martin Roper]

It's that time of year again when the snow has melted leaving the gravel that was plowed off the road in the grass. This is an age old problem that normally isn't a big deal but I plowed so much this year that there is more stone in the grass than on the road in places.

Usually, I wait until it's dry, put the stone rake on and drag what I can back into the roadway. This does a fair job with the larger stuff but most of the stone 1/2" and smaller is left behind. If I get too aggressive with the rake, I tear up the grass and drag it into the road along with the stone.

For areas near the house, I use a fine bladed hand rake which does a pretty good job. I maintain 1.25 miles of gravel driveway and private road though and hand raking is out of the question. I thought about getting a power sweeper but I'm afraid it will also tear up the grass. Can anyone offer tips or tricks to ease the problem?

Have you tried a back pack blower or better still a tractor mounted leaf blower unit.

 

[the old grind]

How about putting feet on your plow and plow snow instead of the gravel in your driveway.

If you get 4" of wet snow on top of 2-3" of thawed mush plow feet will just leave ruts where you scooped up mud & gravel. A loader bucket can be angled to not cut. Even with my worst level indicator scooping and leaving hard pack when desired isn't fussy with the Edge Tamers. I've reduced 'plowing' time by at least a third, and IMO fussun' with leveling the bucke by 2/3. btw, I can mount or swap my ETs in 5-10 min into any of three FEL buckets (4WD) & off-season they take up very little shelf space. (Prevention)

 

[Hysyde]

I've tried raking etc, but the Stihl powerhead with the paddle sweeper, while a workout, is 100% effective. Nothing else comes close to a rubber paddle sweeper for effectivenss (in my experience).

I've separated the stone from the chaff in the past to reuse the gravel, but no I mostly cart it away to beef up paths where I'm not too concerned about the debris mixed in.

 

[warleg]

I notice way too many people are waaay to **** about this. Sure, knock down and get rid of the worst and of course BIG stones, but it's amazing how totally the gravel disappears when the grass grows. Can there really be that many people looking for something to do?

Every spring the concession road in front of my place is covered with tons and tons of gravel and sand. Looks like it will never be grass again! If it's badly damaged and rutted, I level it with a Harley Rake, but it always grows grass again, and you would never know. Besides, I figure, the agregate will give the grass shoulders a bit of resilience against vehicle traffic in wet conditions.

I guess my thing is I pay for that gravel, and I kinda like it to be where I planned for it to be. But you have a point.

 

[The Haymaker]

For long driveway and road edges, I just backdrag and spread. If done early, the lawn recovers fine.

Otherwise, raking is good cardio.

 

[ray66v]

I found the simplest way is to not push the gravel into the lawn.

My drive doesn't have any inclines, so I don't plow unless I have packed down a 3"-4" layer of snow.

I do have the pipe attached to my plow. For Gods sake, don't waste your time slitting it. It's completely unnecessary. Just weld on some tabs, and attach it with the screws that hold the cutting edge on.

I have 8" casters, instead of shoes on my plow.

Since it's a FEL mounted plow, I can set the height of the blade a couple inches above the ground.

I move less than pail of gravel plowing 325' of driveway.

 

[GWalker]

It's that time of year again when the snow has melted leaving the gravel that was plowed off the road in the grass. This is an age old problem that normally isn't a big deal but I plowed so much this year that there is more stone in the grass than on the road in places.

Usually, I wait until it's dry, put the stone rake on and drag what I can back into the roadway. This does a fair job with the larger stuff but most of the stone 1/2" and smaller is left behind. If I get too aggressive with the rake, I tear up the grass and drag it into the road along with the stone.

For areas near the house, I use a fine bladed hand rake which does a pretty good job. I maintain 1.25 miles of gravel driveway and private road though and hand raking is out of the question. I thought about getting a power sweeper but I'm afraid it will also tear up the grass. Can anyone offer tips or tricks to ease the problem?

I compact the first few light snowfalls which gives me a firm two inch +/- base after which I use a FEL with plow and turf tires when I can so as not to tear through the base. In the spring I use a backpack blower for the cleanup. For the heavier areas I pull up to the gravel with FEL and blow the gravel directly into the bucket. On a good year it takes about an hour to finish a 900 ft driveway. The years in which my plowing technique wasn't all that good it takes about 2-3hrs. Lastly I am no longer **** about a little gravel left in the grass, it will get absorbed into the ground with a few passes of the lawn mower.

 

[Wakey]

I tried the backpack blower on the drive and it worked very well. I wouldn’t have thought to try it so thanks for the tip! I began to hand rake it a couple weeks ago and just shook my head..

The blower works well bedding down pine straw as well. I watched a commercial crew throw down the straw quickly and haphazardly. The next guy came behind them to blow off the shrubs, press it down and define the edges. Another aha moment for me.

 

[Bullwinkle123]

So I was reading here in TBN some weeks ago, looking for ideas on how to get all the gravel out of my grass put there by the guy who plows the driveway every winter. And I'm thinking power brooms, landscape rakes, blah blah blah, anything to keep me from having to actually rake it all up and/or pluck each stone out by hand (which in some places I've had to do).

However this year is the first year I've had the BillyGoat 10HP blower that I bought for fall cleanups, and it did a very good job on the gravel. Blows those rocks just far enough that they end up back in the driveway and not on the other side of the driveway. Since it weighs a lot and can only blow on one side there were some places I couldn't clear effectively with it, but mostly it handled clearing rocks from 5 feet to either side of the driveway, and 10+ feet off the end of it. Saved me a ton of work. My little electric blowers wouldn't have done it. I know some people have backpack blowers, maybe that works too. 10HP was a sweet spot on this I think.

 

[sparky61]

I have the same problem - the snow plow wings half the road onto the grass across the front of the property - as regular as the seasons. I have been using an old Sweepster rotary broom for 40 years. I re-purposed it for the 3-point hitch on my BX and added an angle control about 4 years ago. It works great and doesn't take much time. The key is having caster wheels near the front of the rotary broom so it doesn't dig into the grass – otherwise the soil starts to fly.