Blocked paved drive

After posts from Puddycat and Lixi, I feel better now.

General untidyness is best confined to a garden Caleo. Some of this so-called virtue signalling is down to sheer laziness. My garden is incredibly bee and insect friendly, I decided not to have grass and my foundation, all over my soil, is formed by sedums. With many pops of colour and trees and other perennials of varying heights, also a water feature

Karcher with the flat round head otherwise the jet would lift the sand in between blocks. Honestly I love my red blocked drive, me and my neighbour are next to each other and I do his the same time as mine, he is in a care home

I have a dedicated sprayer for weeds and might use spray and go once a year. I saw a few weeds last week and just went out and zapped them with weedkiller. My drive is clean and very lovely. I also keep an eye on the big turning space at the front, also block paved. I don`t use my karcher on that but will weed-spray and brush with a hard bristle room. That also looks good

We salt our block paving twice a year; just dribble cheap household salt into the grooves during a dry period. We skirt the moss to keep it looking natural. Well pleased.

Caleo

All but one of the replies are depressing. Does nobody among the Grans care about wild flowers, bees, and healthy untidyness.

I do care about these things, but cater for them in the rest of the garden. The driveway is for cars and is block paving - if and when I can afford it I will change it to gravel held in place by a grid system, but my lottery numbers didn't come up this week.
Meanwhile the paving needs to be maintained as best as I can without using harmful pesticides/herbicides or chemicals which might harm the many passing dogs.

Lucky you. Sadly many of us have bought our properties with hard-core drives already in place and are unable to afford to have them dug up and replaced with your suggestion. Similarly, many of us have no strong sturdy offspring to come and maintain it. Therefore, we do what we can, with what we have, taking as much ecological care as is possible whilst ensuring we have safe physical access to our property. But you do you.....

Thanks for asking.

The alternative is gravel with no weed f
proof underlay. The way I manage my gravel is to drop weed killer on selected wild plants such as docks, briars, holly , baby wild cherry ,and ivy. I positively encourage clover ,green alkanet, daisies , buttercups , dandelions, annual grasses , and garden escapes such as hyacinth. I think stinking iris is ugly so I ask a son to dig it up and bin it.

The large front drive which used to be a barley field has a lot of barley which is very pretty in spring and summer. The cars that park on my drive and front garden don't get bogged down in the wet as I just buy more river gravel as required.

What would you suggest as an alternative to hard drives caleo? Dig them all up and have swingbridges instead?

All these are excellent objections , Puddycat, to my post.
Could we enlarge this practical discussion to include the ethics of hard drives ?

All but one of the replies are depressing. Does nobody among the Grans care about wild flowers, bees, and healthy untidyness.

No bees are going to be attracted to dock leaves, mare's tail and hen's bane because they don't flower. The taproots of dandelions go deep and, if left to grow, become thick and woody and get under the paving blocks making them uneven and a trip hazard. The healthy untidiness is moss which, if ignored, becomes a deathtrap when wet.

For the wall I would use a cleaner such as Wet and Forget. It is sprayed on and left. Very soon the stone will lighten and stay clear for at least a year. I use it on my patio, walls, paths, fences and shed.

All but one of the replies are depressing. Does nobody among the Grans care about wild flowers, bees, and healthy untidyness.

Virtually every type of driveway is going to require maintenance at some point, whether it's flagged, gravelled or block paved and the longer you leave doing it, the harder it will become. I've had a long block paved drive for 4 years and really, as long as you attend to the weeds and moss before they get a hold, it really needn't be a big job. As recommended on here, I mix white vinegar, biological washing soap, salt and a dash of bleach and spray that over the whole drive each Spring. The following day simply turn your hose pipe with clean water and brush down with a yard brush. If the weeds and discolouration are really bad, buy some hydrochloric acid from Amazon, mix it 1:10 water and spray it on. Leave 24 hours and rinse off. Initial maintenance is key though.

The best method is to use your jet washer with the round brush scrubber attached, that won’t remove the sand/cement between your slabs, it’s not as immediately effective as a normal jet wash so you have to work a bit harder, but it works really well.

It is very difficult to maintain - jet wash it to clean it and you blast away all the sand between the blocks. A few of the neighbours ours have had them installed and I agree, they look fabulous when they're new but give them a couple of years and they look dreadful. One chap spends hours scraping away at the weeds, the noise would set my teeth on edge.
I would also have serious environmental concerns about the commercial cleaning agents and sealants - they cannot be good for wildlife and the eco system can they?

Llamedos13.. Thankyou. I will give it a try. I have an empty weedkiller sprayer which should do the trick. If not my watering can will have to do.!!

Georgesgran

Online, there’s a recommendation to add salt and washing up liquid to the white vinegar before spraying.
I haven’t tried it, but I have a big block paved drive and use Pathclear in a watering can, over the whole area a couple of times a year, but I do remove the odd weed as they appear.
I had it ‘professionally’ cleaned a couple of years ago - what a mess - never again.

I use Pathclear too and find it excellent. I generally find one application a year is enough though occasionally need to do it twice.

Thanks redrobin. I will have to buy a new one first!!!

I was having the same trouble. Now before putting it away for the winter I put a good amount of just warm water in it, swirl it around and the throughly spray it through. I think some residue from the mixes I was spraying throughout the summer were clogging up the sprayer over winter. Worth a try as they are expensive to keep on replacing.

I really dislike blocked paving, a weeds happy home. I wished I had kept my grass, easier to care for, . Don't need it for parking.

Sarahr

The builder who laid our block paving drive told us his Mother sweeps her drive every week and never has weeds etc. We are doing the same and so far, so good. My husband treats the drive every few years to keep it nice.

So sorry Sarahr but I have a vision of your drive tucking in to a box of chocs for its 'treat'.

I know what you meant; I just read it skew-whiff and it made me chuckle. I think my drive would appreciate a cup of tea and a digestive biscuit. ...

but it gets the vinegar/washing up liquid and salt treatment like everyone else's!

The builder who laid our block paving drive told us his Mother sweeps her drive every week and never has weeds etc. We are doing the same and so far, so good. My husband treats the drive every few years to keep it nice.

Thanks Llamedos.

Anyone any advice about the sprayer?

Madmeg, sorry, yes, dish soap is what we use in Canada, in the UK you use washing up liquid😀

LovelyLady, the recipe I use is 1 gallon of white vinegar, 8 ounces salt and one table spoon washing up liquid.