Landscaping Question! Looking For Cheap Way To Remove Rock (Scottsdale: apartment, HOA)

[sma22]

Hello All,

Sorry for the length, but this requires the story of the landscaping mess my house has been over the last few years since I purchased it.

When I bought the house, I had only lived in Arizona shortly (all apartment living) so I knew next to nothing about lawn care, etc. out here in the desert. The house had "grass" front and back, a term which I use loosely given that literally everything had been dead for months. The sprinkler system constantly malfunctioned and the main computer/unit running it was shot so it could only be turned on manually.

Thinking to myself this is such a disaster and telling myself (incorrectly) that water must be super expensive here in the desert, I had a good quality (forget the exact style name) 1 inch rock thrown down in the front yard and back yard around the pool. Irrigation was cut and capped. Since then, I've had foundation work done on a block wall done so some of the rock was disturbed and not put back (so to the speak) in the best manner.

Fast forward to last year, when I decided to break up the blandness of the back yard with at least some grass. My backyard is essentially cut in two equal pieces with my pool in the middle. So as awful as it was, I spent some summer nights manually moving the rock from approx. 1,000 square feet on the right side over to the left side, which was a little un-level and could have used some more rock.

With the right 1,000 sq ft side mostly done, I gave in and paid a landscaping company approx. 900 dollars to haul the remainder of the right side rock away, break up the soil and lay seed down. It took a 2 man crew an entire day to demo the soil to prep it for seed. In that process i just told them to rip away the old irrigation pvc as it had just been sitting there for years unused.

That has worked out decently, and the grass has turned out ok when i stick to manually watering it with a sprinkler I lay down.

I have now come to hate the remaining rock left hand side, which is approx. 1,500 sq ft. Is there any cheap way to get the rock hauled away? Am I crazy, or have I seen people say on this forum if you post on craigslist people will take rock away for free so they can use on another landscaping job? If I can do that, I'd be willing to pay another 1,000 bucks or so for the demo and seed, then manually water and see how that turns out.

Is what I'm suggesting for the left side feasible? Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.

[Burning Madolf]

I can't comment on your grass issues/ideas, but if you live in an HOA and your rock matches the common areas you can offer it to them. One of my neighbors just offered their backyard rock to the HOA and they jumped at the idea (would have been moved by the HOA landscaper for a few hundred $$$) but I think the guy just moved it out front instead.
You could also offer it to a neighbor.

[ScottsdaleMark]

In my experience it's hard to get rid of rock even for free, you usually have to pay someone to deal with it. Shoveling up rock and loading it is a hard process and you invariably get way too much dirt/debris in there with it, making it kind of worthless.

Maybe someone somewhere would want it if it's free, e.g. someone who can't afford to buy clean rock. If you're not afraid of Craiglist people, that's probably the place to post it as "free" and see if anyone bites, but I don't think it's a guarantee since there are so many different types of rock and therefore if you have quarter-minus pink and someone needs half inch gold, it's a mismatch.

[john3232]

I guess it might depend on what kind of rocks they are. Apache Pink or Madison Gold you might be able to find someone interested in taking them off your hands.

[john3232]

Originally Posted by ScottsdaleMark

In my experience it's hard to get rid of rock even for free, you usually have to pay someone to deal with it. Shoveling up rock and loading it is a hard process and you invariably get way too much dirt/debris in there with it, making it kind of worthless.

Maybe someone somewhere would want it if it's free, e.g. someone who can't afford to buy clean rock. If you're not afraid of Craiglist people, that's probably the place to post it as "free" and see if anyone bites, but I don't think it's a guarantee since there are so many different types of rock and therefore if you have quarter-minus pink and someone needs half inch gold, it's a mismatch.

That's a good point. Often simpler to buy the rocks which aren't very expensive. I got a half a ton last month when I was doing some landscaping myself. Think the price was $20.

[Zippyman]

I've had new / fresh / clean rock at the end of my driveway in the past (bought too much) & couldn't get anyone to take it. That said, hiring a truck & a tractor/bobcat isn't necessarily as expensive as it sounds. The minimum charge to get the equipment there is the worst part (about $750 last time I checked) & then you're looking at roughly $25 /ton to get the stuff hauled away to one of the "inert" landfills. Personally, I wouldn't even try to hire anyone to do that kind of work manually, not that you wouldn't find any volunteers, but because the people I've hired in the past to do that kind of thing manually usually just pick at it for a couple of days, then give up.

If you want it scraped & prepared properly for grass, you need someone with a laser & a transit & some machinery to get it leveled & broken up properly, even if it means killing some of your new/old grass in the process.