Removing gravel for yard space (grown, manure, butterfly, crape)

[sll3454]

One of the houses I'm looking at online has a much smaller lot than I want (but DH would like it) but otherwise is something I'd consider. The owners have extended the gravel driveway for extra parking. I'm wondering how hard it would be to clear the gravel and turn that space back into something living. If I'm moving to a dinky lot I want to be able to use all of it.

Would that be a job for one middle-aged woman, one wheelbarrow, and one shovel, and one rake? Or should I not consider it reclaimable?

[Butterfly4u]

sll,
I'm in my fifties and I spread 10 tons of gravel very gradually for parking.
yes, you can claim it. The stones only act as a mulch really.
Just pile up the stones in a corner somewhere, you never know, you might
use them for something in the future.
Then rake or shovel in some composted manure and
your set.
Don't forget to mulch whatever you want to plant.
But if you aren't totally in love with the house,
buy a bigger plot.

[sll3454]

Thanks, Butterfly. I figure I'd need to add gravel to the driveway at some point, anyway, so I'd definitely have a use for it.

[motordavid]

Maybe not exactly parallel, but we had a 4-8 ft wide strip of 'gravel', stone, construction stuff along our drive. I simply picked up the bigger rocks for stacking around plantings, brushed/raked planting sized areas, dug with my pick, and planted a variety of evergreens, perennials, etc. using a cheapo 'top soil' in bags from HD or Lowes. I mulched over the remainder of the areas around the plantings, did some broken red brick along the drive edge for guest getting out of cars, and most/all the plantings have grown like weeds, even up here at 5,000 ft Zone 6a barely/Zone5b mostly.

My point is the gravel won't 'care' and neither will the plantings if you do proper planting holes and use decent planting soil(s) for the initial larger than pot sized hole and planting. Unless the gravel is ankle deep...

I'm hitting medicare this summer, so no kid, but our drive side planting has come together pretty well over the past few years. My 50Cts...
GL, mD

[azoria]

Considering the soil quality in the rest of the yard, is the dirt beneath the gravel worthwhile? Have you had a chance to poke down underneath it?

You might be better to reclaim the graveled area by creating raised beds.

[cittic10]

Depending on how well they did it, it can be very difficult to remove it and pretty much impossible to do by hand.

The proper way to put in a gravel drive is to first compact the soil, then add a base layer of finely textured material and compact that. Sometimes people add a fabric to prevent weeds then larger gravel is added on top. If all that is there is gravel then that's easy but I wouldn't count on that being the case. Dig down and see if you hit a impenetrable layer.

You could use a bobcat loader or something like that to scrape it all up if that's the case. You'll need a place to dispose of it of course.