Our driveway is made of exposed aggregate and every 8 feet or so the slabs are seperated by a space. The space is the perfect spot for grass and weeds to grow and grow. The grass doesn’t look too bad, but some people like my wife don’t like it. And once the neighbours cleaned their spacers I new it was time for me to clean ours.
In the past I’ve removed the weeds and the grass with a screw driver. Then one day I found a special tool designed specifically for this job. It works much better than a screw driver and does a good job. It’s still not a fun job and then I heard about using a small torch with a propane bottle and burning the weeds. The theory is that you just need to burn the tops and the weeds will die. And nothing will grow in the spacer or cracks because they are full of dead roots.
This method is a lot more fun and easier than using a screw driver or the special tool. It’s also a lot quicker and you can do it standing up. But after two years of using this method it doesn’t work too well. The weeds and grass grow back in a few weeks.
So a few weeks ago when it was time to do this job, I found the trusty tool I purchased a few years ago and got busy. It took me a few hours cleaning out the spacers and cracks, but once the job was done it lookd pretty good. After cleaning up all of the weeds and grass I took it one step further. If you compare the picture to the right (clean spacer), with the picture above you can see the before and after.
My neighbour mentioned that once he cleans out the cracks he uses a garden hose with an attachment that has more pressure than a normal sprayer, but not as much as pressure washer. The pressure washer has too much power for this job. The small attachment on the hose is great an if you follow up every few months you never have to scrape the weeds and grass out of the spacers…ya!