Road building anyone?
a1154
Posts: 1,108
Hello, i have to make a way through my garden that the farmer can drive over in a tractor, which happens about twice a year. in future i may need to get a car there with horsebox, so this is not just for the farmer! I have made the borders out of wood and need to consider the surface.
I have not much imagination and can only come up with 1. Grass. Is cheap, but then i need to cut it and will get churned up by the tractor if its wet. The soil tends to turn to mud. 2. Membrane then gravel (grey to match existing). This would be more expensive, less maintenance, but im worried the weight of the tractor will just churn it up or drive the stones through the membrane. Also a bit ugly as its a major part of the garden.
Really dont know what else i could do, but i suppose im asking how to build a road with v little money! Any ideas welcome.
Posts
Do you know which time of the year the farmer needs this access? - it will make a huge difference if it's only in the summer or in the winter.
Also the size of the tractor and any implements it is towing will be important.
Modern tractors can be huge.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
only july for hay cutting. Tractor plus trailer for hay. I measured the tractor for the width of the road and took the trailer into account as they dont go round corners too well, so its a gentle arc. Its a modern tractor but not massive.
Used to work for Wildlife Trust and we used a honeycomb type of plastic that grass grew through, it looked nice and as we used it as a car park I would assume it was fairly tough, cant comment on the price though.
Hmmm pics are loading upside down even if i flip them over first. Ill try again.
sorted the upside down thing, the ipad seems to correct the orientation for you but not when its uploaded.
first pic, just after the gravel drive the road starts...
Pic2 arcs round what will be a flower bed and the lawn
Pic 3 up to paddock gate
If it looks a bit of a building site it kind of is.
thats a heck of a track to resurface, at the trust we also used to use crushed stone and use a wacker plate to make a hard surface (you can hire the wackers), it was a reasonable finish and looked quite rustic. It was the road to our visitors car park so used to take a bashing. If we got a pothole due to heavy weather we just had to add more stone and wack it down.
eh? What are the greyhounds for? Got 2 pointers.
The pond is big, just out of sight, i could post a pic coming back in the other direction.
There is a hedge you can see the green tubes along the fence. Oh you mean have a greyhound race track? Well its a thought.
a1154, have you asked the farmer what he would recommend for longevity with tractor use? I walk my dog on the tractor trails around where I live, they are all grass and they form serious ruts that you would not want to take a car or van over, I think you need something a bit more solid than just grass.