Weed Control for Rock Beds

[Pat Germain]

My house has rock beds in the front and back yards. We can get a lot of water restrictions in Colorado Springs which is why the previous owners of my house opted for rock beds over grass. The front yard has two small trees with no trees in the back yard.

The back yard rock beds get a lot of weeds in the spring and summer. There is fabric beneath the rocks, but it doesn't appear to do much. Pulling those weeds is endless.

Does anyone have a recommendation for weed control in rock beds? I know the public areas in my neighborhood get some type of granules a few times a year to control weeds. I would like to avoid a chemical option since I would eventually like to plant some small trees and a small vegetable garden in the back yard. One of my neighbors uses vinegar to control weeds, but I don't know if that actually works.

Thank you.

[Brian Runau]

If there is a fabric weed block down with larger rock over it, what soil are the weeds growing in? Brian

[mike stenson]

Best bet is a pre and post emergent. This is the common deal in AZ, at least in the cities. Vegetable garden you could skip the area.

Otherwise, the only thing I've found that's reliable is a hula hoe.. And a regular weeding.

[Rob Luter]

Roundup to kill, preen to prevent future seed germination.

[Lee Schierer]

Maybe it is time to clean the gravel. You will be amazed how much dirt is under it.

[mike stenson]

Roundup to kill, preen to prevent future seed germination.

That stuff just turned the grass here brown for a week, then it grew 10"

[Pat Germain]

If there is a fabric weed block down with larger rock over it, what soil are the weeds growing in? Brian

The weeds poke right through the fabric. The same thing happened at my previous house, but the rock beds were much smaller and it was easier to manage the weeds. Landscape fabric works for a couple of years, then it seems to create more problems than no fabric.

Strangely, the area around my two trees in the front yard have no landscape fabric. The trees are surrounded by mulch and I almost never get weeds growing in the mulched areas.

[Pat Germain]

Roundup to kill, preen to prevent future seed germination.


Those are both chemicals.

[Pat Germain]

Maybe it is time to clean the gravel. You will be amazed how much dirt is under it.

Likely there is dirt between the rock and the landscaping fabric. Clearing out the dirt would involve completey removing the rock. MAJOR project.

[Bill Dufour]

Propane roofers torch.
Bill D.
https://www.harborfreight.com/propane-torch-with-push-button-igniter-91037.html

[Jerome Stanek]

I had good luck with Rock salt

[glenn bradley]

I have a gravel area with plants. The layer cake goes something like so . . .
- original soil
- Gopher screen (heavy hardware cloth basically
- About 1" of sand
- Double layers of stapled landscape cloth
- 3" of pea gravel

We have a lot of wind and dust. Not Dust Bowl-like dust but we are at the border between suburbia and horses. This means a collection of larger lots with animals and the open land to sustain them. The result is, despite the barriers the gravel gets loaded with blown in dust. The weed seeds get carried on the same wind and take hold. As long as we police the area and pull things when they are just getting started they pull out super easy. They have nothing to really establish roots in. If we slack for a few weeks, some of them are hard to pull as they have drilled down to the deeper layers.

We plan a similar area out front. We sill sink dummy flower pots that will hold the actual pots effectively isolating (enough anyway) the plants from the open areas. I plan to hit the open areas with Monsanto's latest World Defoliator-3000 (I made that up). It is not so much a failure of the barrier we put down or the depth of the mulch or gravel as it is my misunderstanding of what would happen when the gravel loaded up with soil being blown in.

[Jim Becker]

Fabric weed block down below, Preen to keep seeds from germinating in whatever you put in to fill the area and a vinegar/epson-salt/Dawn mixture to kill things that grow safely. (no need for "Roundup")

[Pat Germain]

Propane roofers torch.
Bill D.
https://www.harborfreight.com/propane-torch-with-push-button-igniter-91037.html

Hey, apparently a weed torch is a thing. Thanks. I had not considered that.

[Pat Germain]

Fabric weed block down below, Preen to keep seeds from germinating in whatever you put in to fill the area and a vinegar/epson-salt/Dawn mixture to kill things that grow safely. (no need for "Roundup")

Would preen cause problems later with planting trees or a vegetable garden?

[Frederick Skelly]

I use herbicidal vinegar, 20-30% acetic acid. It works for me in my situation. You should evaluate whether it suits yours. Here’s a link to one article - there are many others. LINK (https://www.montana.edu/extension/invasiveplants/extension/monthly-weed-posts/2021-june-does-vinegar-kill-weeds.html#:~:text=Vinegar%20with%20a%20higher%20c oncentration,young%20leaves%20and%20growing%20poin ts.)

[Brian Runau]

The weeds poke right through the fabric. The same thing happened at my previous house, but the rock beds were much smaller and it was easier to manage the weeds. Landscape fabric works for a couple of years, then it seems to create more problems than no fabric.

Strangely, the area around my two trees in the front yard have no landscape fabric. The trees are surrounded by mulch and I almost never get weeds growing in the mulched areas.

I've learned over time not to use landscape fabric, stuff composts on top of it and weeds grow. Mulch every year works. I wouldn't worry about using chemicals for spot treatment affecting areas around it. You could remove the rock and add metal edge and grow a ground cover instead. Brian

[glenn bradley]

Fabric weed block down below, Preen to keep seeds from germinating in whatever you put in to fill the area and a vinegar/epson-salt/Dawn mixture to kill things that grow safely. (no need for "Roundup")

I would know more of this "vinegar/epson-salt/Dawn mixture" you speak of :D. I have moved varmints along with minimally impactive treatments and would love to deal with the gravel area in a similar way. Can you please give ratios? We use old vinegar to kill weeds but it just kills what is exposed. Always open to trying new things.

[Bill Dufour]

There are companies in Southern California that will come out and paint your gravel when it gets old and dusty. Some will also paint your dead dry lawn bright green.
Photo is a house in S. California that the owners like a sports team. Can you guess which one?
Bill D.

[Jim Becker]

Would preen cause problems later with planting trees or a vegetable garden?
Preen prevents seed germination. I do not know if it will adversely affect putting actual plants in the ground...I suspect not, but it would be a good idea to check. BTW, Preen is currently on sale at Costco.

[Jim Becker]

I would know more of this "vinegar/epson-salt/Dawn mixture" you speak of :D. I have moved varmints along with minimally impactive treatments and would love to deal with the gravel area in a similar way. Can you please give ratios? We use old vinegar to kill weeds but it just kills what is exposed. Always open to trying new things.
There are lots of recipes you can find online, but in general, one gallon of white vinegar (higher concentration even better), one cup of epson salt and a tablespoon of Dawn dish soap, mixed well makes for an environmentally safe herbicide for most weeds and grasses. I use a pump up spray applicator. I will only use glyphosate (RoundUp) on something serious like poison ivy. On a patio or other stone surface, I also use a flame-weeder torch. Between the torch and the vinegar solution...pretty good results.

[Stan Calow]

For people recommending not to use weed block fabric, what's the alternative? I agree, dirt gets under the rocks and some weeds penetrate the fabric, but still better than nothing, isn't it?

BTW, just noticed today at my Lowe's industrial strength (30%) vinegar in cleaning supplies. I had not seen that before.

[Jerome Stanek]

Along m fence lines I use a product called barrier kills weeds and small tree for up to 4 years

[Rob Luter]

Those are both chemicals.

So are oxygen and salt. You could do what the Amish do around here, spend two hours a day weeding. Every day.

[Brian Runau]

Preen prevents seed germination. I do not know if it will adversely affect putting actual plants in the ground...I suspect not, but it would be a good idea to check. BTW, Preen is currently on sale at Costco.

I cover my beds with preen every spring @ 32lbs before my landscaping guy mulches then I plant annuals afterwards. . 24 yards of mulch this year,, I have a landscaping addiction. Brian

[Brian Runau]

For people recommending not to use weed block fabric, what's the alternative? I agree, dirt gets under the rocks and some weeds penetrate the fabric, but still better than nothing, isn't it?

BTW, just noticed today at my Lowe's industrial strength (30%) vinegar in cleaning supplies. I had not seen that before.

On a new bed, chemicals to kill grass and plant then mulch or paper under the mulch to kill grass and weeds. Mulch on top of landscape fabric composts into dirt which let's weed grow. Brian

[Pat Germain]

So are oxygen and salt. You could do what the Amish do around here, spend two hours a day weeding. Every day.

Hemlock is also a chemical. So yeah, as I stated, I'm concerned using herbicides might cause problems in the future when I plant trees and a vegetable garden. The Amish tend to be very resourceful. I'm surprised they haven't developed some kind of natural weed killer. But I supposed pulling weeds every day would work. That doesn't work for me.

[Jerome Stanek]

Hemlock is also a chemical. So yeah, as I stated, I'm concerned using herbicides might cause problems in the future when I plant trees and a vegetable garden. The Amish tend to be very resourceful. I'm surprised they haven't developed some kind of natural weed killer. But I supposed pulling weeds every day would work. That doesn't work for me.

That is why they have a lot of kids.

[Bill Dufour]

I can no longer find any videos but last summer Califonia was testing a brush/grass burning machine. Towed behind a bulldozer it rolls over and burns man sized brush and makes almost no smoke.
Bill D

[Bill Dufour]

:rolleyes:
That is why they have a lot of kids.
Little goats or something else?
Bill D

[Dave Schreib]

For people recommending not to use weed block fabric, what's the alternative? I agree, dirt gets under the rocks and some weeds penetrate the fabric, but still better than nothing, isn't it?

I've found weed block to be ineffective and it eventually gets exposed and ragged. For me it would be round up in a 2 gallon pump sprayer. I walk the beds once a week or so. A gallon of concentrate lasts me a couple of seasons. I would have zero concern about the round up affecting future plantings including any vegetables that I would eat. The veggies you eat from the store and at a restaurant were grown with similar herbicides. It's not that I think they are harmless. It's that I think the alternative to using herbicides is worse.

[Rob Luter]

Hemlock is also a chemical. So yeah, as I stated, I'm concerned using herbicides might cause problems in the future when I plant trees and a vegetable garden. The Amish tend to be very resourceful. I'm surprised they haven't developed some kind of natural weed killer. But I supposed pulling weeds every day would work. That doesn't work for me.

Neither Roundup or Preen will cause problems in the future. A rock garden is the perfect spot for both.

Roundup works by being absorbed through the plant leaves. It has no impact on soil. The overspray that hits the rocks and other areas surrounding the weeds gets burned off by the UV in the sun's rays in pretty short order, especially at altitude like you are.

Preen prevents weed seeds from germinating. It is a temporary measure, just like crabgrass preventer (same stuff).

Your situation is pretty common for rock gardens. Dust, pollen, and tree litter collect in the nooks and crannies. I have a gravel path at my home that was put in 30 years ago. The original gravel bed is nearly covered by composted organic matter as mentioned above. Roundup and Preen are applied every spring to keep it looking like a path.

[Thomas McCurnin]

Vinegar solution 1:4

[Keegan Shields]

Also 2-4 D works great. Add some surfactant also. Both available on Amazon.

[Mark Wedel]

Most of my yard has a thick layer of mulch, which I'll hand weed. The mulch keeps most of the weeds down, but for those that do sprout up, they are not rooted in the dirt so easy to pull up (dirt where I'm at is heavy in clay, so once weeds get rooted in that, hard to pull up). Keeping on top of things is fairly important - easy to pull up small weeds, harder to pull up big weeds, and really want to get rid of them before the produce seeds to make more weeds. A couple hours a week is more than enough to keep those areas fairly weed free.

But for my pavers or rocks where weeds sprout up, I use round up - no danger of overspray hitting plants I don't want to kill, but otherwise trying to pull up plants that are growing in the cracks between the pavers does not work very well.

As an aside, in the summertime, everything is on drip irrigation (no rain here in the summer) which also greatly reduces weeds vs sprinklers which spray water over a large area (which I see some people using for entire planting beds, but it does mean that sections of that bed are getting plenty of water for weeds to grow where there are no plants)

All of this depends on the amount of property one is maintaining. If my properly was 4x bigger, I'd probably rethink a lot of this, but that would also lead into other thoughts on what to do with all that space.

[Bill Dufour]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m88JLUAW2l0

[Clifford McGuire]

I cover my beds with preen every spring @ 32lbs before my landscaping guy mulches then I plant annuals afterwards. . 24 yards of mulch this year,, I have a landscaping addiction. Brian

24 yards of mulch!!! That's gotta be a couple truckloads.

Do you start your own annuals fromm seed?

[Brian Runau]

24 yards of mulch!!! That's gotta be a couple truckloads.

Do you start your own annuals fromm seed?

I admitted I am a landscaping addict! I'm 67 so I pay a guy to do this.. His crew swarms the yard for @ 4-5 hours. We have a shade garden, perennial cutting garden , herb garden, lavender bed along with all the shrubs and trees. Zinnias mostly from seed, more lavender this year and 36 caladium bulbs we start early. Thanks brian

[Mark Wedel]

Several years ago I refreshed my mulch, and rather than pay money for it, I used getchipdrop. I think I estimated that it was close to 30 yards - the somewhat annoying thing is that since it comes from a tree service, they have their machines that shoot the mulch high into there covered truck, so a truck can carry a lot more than one might be able to reasonably load in other trucks. I liked the fact it was free, liked less that I didn't have a lot of say in how much I would get, and the quality of some of it wasn't great (decent sized chunks of wood, and not mulch). Plus side is I got plenty of mulch to cover every inch of my yard with several inches.

[Brian Runau]

We've planted liriope and pachysandra in some beds or it would be worse. Brian

[Jim Becker]

Several years ago I refreshed my mulch, and rather than pay money for it, I used getchipdrop. I think I estimated that it was close to 30 yards - the somewhat annoying thing is that since it comes from a tree service, they have their machines that shoot the mulch high into there covered truck, so a truck can carry a lot more than one might be able to reasonably load in other trucks. I liked the fact it was free, liked less that I didn't have a lot of say in how much I would get, and the quality of some of it wasn't great (decent sized chunks of wood, and not mulch). Plus side is I got plenty of mulch to cover every inch of my yard with several inches.
The issue with fresh, uncomposted chipping is that it can mess with the soil in a negative way, pulling out nitrogen, etc., out. So it's great for "those areas" that are not intended for planting, but not advisable for areas that are considered gardens. It's best to use composted mulch for that.

[Ken Platt]

Add me to the former user of weed fabric crowd. The stuff just makes the situation worse. I found that the weeds actually anchored themselves in the fabric, where as with the mulched beds, as someone else posted, the weeds root in the loose mulch and can be pulled or removed with any weeder device easily. (I favor the stirrup weeders, and have several of them in various lengths and configurations. Highly recommended).

For the rock and beds, which I have surrounding the house foundation, I've used a weed burner to hit the ones I want to get rid of(I let the desirable stuff grow, like violets, wood aster, ferns. I think they look nice in the rocks). Easy, and admittedly rather satisfying.

Ken

[Jim Becker]

For general beds, I actually agree about eschewing the weed barrier material because it does cause issues over time...and our dog likes to dig it up. But for beds that have stone, you kinda have to use some kind of geotextile in the base to keep soil from leaching up through the stones and the stones sinking down into the soil. It's the same issue as when building a stone driveway or a dry lot paddock for livestock...soil moves.

[Pat Germain]

Sounds like I just need to plant a Fairytale Forest in my yard. Those seem to be low-maintenance. Might be a problem keeping it watered here on the front range...

[Ken Platt]

Good point, Jim. I haven't found this to be a problem here, possibly because my rock beds are immediately surrounding the foundation, so maybe the ground is compacted enough? But for the rocks I use for borders at other places, they sure do sink in. I periodically move these as I slowly extend beds, so still don't use fabric....I've really gotten to loathe the stuff. I guess it's personal now:D

[Stan Calow]

I am still not convinced that no fabric is better than having fabric. I have fabric (heavy, not hardware store stuff) on three sides of the house, and besides weed control, it provides some help with drainage. They're all rock beds as the mulch I used before attracts insects (including a termite nest I found once). i still have to pull weeds and use oundup, but nothing is maintenance free. Great point about soil movement, especially around the foundation.

[Jim Becker]

Stan, there clearly is a difference between the typical mass market weed block fabric and geotextile; the latter is much heavier but still permeable by water. The Vevor product I used under my shop was pretty impressive and I have some left over that I'll likely use where I feel I need something like that.

[John Lifer]

I've got one LARGE 20x40 foot bed that's rock in my front and two 20x30 ft at the end of the driveway. all had fabric under the rock. In 5 years, it is WORTHLESS. Too much grass clippings, leaves and other dirt gets into the crevices and weeds appear. ROUNDUP or the equivalent. Or one local guy has found a source for 40% vinegar. And that will kill too. Oh, I moved the rock off of one of the beds at the road last year. WORK, and then put down new fabric. Still have weeds coming back.

[Rob Luter]

Sounds like I just need to plant a Fairytale Forest in my yard. Those seem to be low-maintenance. Might be a problem keeping it watered here on the front range...

I would think so. My folks lived just North of you in Parker for a number of years. It was so dry they struggled to get anything to grow. They also had to supplement the soil with organic matter to create a hospitable environment for growing plants. They thought they'd set up a compost pile like we had in Michigan. Nope. Too dry and nothing would rot.

[Terry Wawro]

I will say that 18 years ago we put in rock beds. At the time I used a heavy professional grade weed blocking fabric under the rocks. I get a few weeds but by and large it's still there, doing a great job of keeping the beds fairly weed free.