Gravel Possibilities

[Pixie777]

Good evening,

I know zero about lawn care. That is why I am here. I am hoping experts can give me advice. I have a large area of a new home that has been graveled. Quite a bit of gravel/dirt was dumped and then spread out.

What does this mean for future potential for grass and/or other plants? Is there any hope? Would it be expensive?

I'd love to do something with this space, but I don't have the knowledge of even where to start.

Thank you for any information.

[Thejarrod]

I lived in a house that had an area of gravel. The owner many years ago parked a camper there. The next owner put down sod. It looked like they may have put down some soil before the sod, but it had maybe 3 to 4 inches of soil under the grass. That area was sensitive to summer heat and draught. That area reacted differently to summer stress, which is why I did some exploratory digging, which is how I discovered what I described.

If you just want something green, you can probably bring in 3 inches of topsoil and plant grass.

If you want a lawn that makes people stop and take pictures, you will need 6 or 8 inches of good soil, so that probably means removing the gravel.

[ABC123]

Depending on how large the gravel pieces are the harder it will be to grow anything. The gravel/rock will absorb some water and also heat up with the sun.

Do you have any pictures of the area?

If its not too bad and the gravel is rather small you could rake up the rocks on the surface with a landscape rake. Try to get a few inches down if you can with the rake. You can do this slowly over a few weeks and add them to the garbage can if you dont have an area to dispose of them.

Lots of new homes have this problem, you could talk to the builders quality control person or talk to the foreman and see if they could address it if its really bad.

[Pixie777]

Thank you so much. I don’t have a photo because of the snow. However, it is a rather large area. I don’t know what they used it for.

My goal is just to get something comfortable to grow there. Top soil may be expensive for the size of the area but I can work on it slowly.

Is there a type of grass seed that would do better? Or, plants that have a small root base.

[ABC123]

Did you get any sod or irrigation installed or plan on any in the future?

Is there any tree coverage or is it all full sun?

You can figure out how big the lot is with your blueprints as that will help determine what might be appropriate.

Your soil should be mostly sand so anything should grow decently but sand doesn't hold onto nutrients very well.