how to maintain rock lawn? (Home Depot, vacuum, gas, electric)

[citric]

Loving Phoenix so far! Quick Q though: how should I maintain my rock lawn? I've been tearing up a bunch of ugly black plastic stuff and pulling weeds. There's still a lot of dead twigs, feathers, leaves, and stuff though. Any thoughts on keeping it nice? Is there some kind of special rake or roller or something one uses to neaten it out? I love the look of the rock lawn, and it's totally appropriate for the desert, but I've never even walked on one before two days ago!

[madmmac]

I spray for weeds. You can try a metal rake to freshen and lift the debris and pick it up by hand. I have not had very good luck that way. I have a electric blower that you can also vacumn into a bag, it works just, ok.

The best results I have had is just to put a fresh top coat of the rocks that you currently have. It only takes a 1/2 inch of rocks on top to make it look brand new.

If you have 5 gallon buckets, grab them and a handful of your rocks and head to All Star Materials http://www.allstar-materials.com/Locations.html . They have a great selection and can pretty much match up whatever rocks that you have. They only charge about $2.50 a bucket. Depending on your lot size and amount of rocks, 10 to 15 buckets should probably get it done. So 25 to 40 bucks or so and it looks like brand new.

If you don't have the buckets, Home Depot sells them.

P.S---a full bucket can be pretty heavy for some people.

Good luck and welcome.

[observer53]

Refreshing the rocks helps, the deeper the rocks, the fewer the weeds. You can also use preemergent weed killer at certain times of year to control the weeds. A regular leaf rake (the sort of triangular shaped one) will keep the rocks smooth, assuming you have the kind of rocks that are not too large.

[Zippyman]

I've had good luck doing a "quick spiff" of the rocks by having one person raking the rocks with a hard rake, while another uses a gas blower to blow the leaves & debris out.

In the spring, you hose the rocks down with surflan (pre-emergent herbicide) - and any weed that gets past that gets a drink of roundup. (not many pop when you use surflan).

The black plastic you're pulling up was probably put there to keep weeds from popping... you very likely don't have a very thick layer of rocks- depending on the size of your yard, you can do as the poster above mentioned and buy more by the bucket, or by the ton - Pioneer landscaping materials has a huge selection of rock that runs about $30-$60 per ton.

[citric]

Awesome awesome awesome. Thanks for the tips, especially the rock source tips!! (I tried to match rocks with Home Depot and it didn't work out.)

[MotleyCrew]

I vacuum mine.

[pbenjamin]

Black plastic is a disaster. Our best success was a pre-emergent twice a year and then Roundup and/or pulling weeds in between.

[slackjaw]

Originally Posted by citric

especially the rock source tips!! (I tried to match rocks with Home Depot and it didn't work out.)

If you find your need for rocks is big companies like All-Star will deliver by the ton for a fee. You schedule a day and early in the morning a big pile of rocks of your choice will be dumped at the end of your driveway. Then it is just a long day with wheelbarrow, shovel, and of course beer.

As another pointed out the deeper the better for weed control, I read somewhere that a 2" layer is optimum to both control weeds while still allowing existing or new plants to flourish.

For maintenance a good leaf blower works great on rocks, just blow towards your driveway from all directions then sweep. Also = If you have elevated areas you need to occasionally rake rocks upwards near them as over time gravity will cause them to thin out in higher areas and bunch up downslop.

[motormaker]

What you need instead of plastic is a weed barrier cloth much like this:

Amazon.com: 4 FT x 300 FT Weed Barrier Landscape Fabric - FREE SHIPPING: Patio, Lawn & Garden

Even using this, you still might get weeds. The load of rock I got (21 tons) had enough dirt in it from mining that weeds still popped up. I give them a shot of Round Up.

[crunchman]

You can use a landscaping blower to blow a lot of the "junk" out of the rocks.They make a spray bottle that hooks straight to your hose (walmart), I thinks it's roundup brand,twice a year is good, you have to do it when you first see tine weed "blades" coming up through the rocks, easiest way I have found in 14 hrs.