landscape rock cleaning

[rock cleaner]

looking for process or best practices in cleaning landscape rock.

[AGLA]

Do you mean removing debris from gravel or do you mean something like mortar off of boulders?

[rock cleaner]

removing debris (dirt) from decorative landscape rock wherein weeds grow. the stone 3/4 to 2-3/4 inch used as a ground cover.

[steve5966]

Load all the rock in a dump truck, take somewhere to dump. On the return trip stop at your landscape supply shop and buy new rock.

Or you could take it out and wash it down, you'll only do it once.

[carcrz]

wash it down in your dump bed. The debris should go to the bottom.

[tjsquickcuts]

You guys, this guy has a serious question. Cleaning landscape rocks is a tricky thing. If you try to pressure wash, rocks go flying all over the place. To much work in trying to clear out the bed, wash all rocks, then replace them. Really not much you can do beside redoing the entire thing. I have tried pressure washing stones before, and it work pretty good, but like I stated in the above rocks flew all over the place. Good luck

[AGLA]

I don't know anyone who is going to take up 2-3/4" stone, wash it, and put it back.

I used to do grounds keeping at a lumber mill where there was large stone like that in the planting beds around the scales where they weighed in the log trucks. I cleaned that first by blasting it with a very potent back pack blower. Then it was raking and picking the stone to get it on top of the crap. It sucked and it took a long time, but I was an employee that was going to be doing that or something else that sucked. I'm not sure anyone would have been thrilled to pay a contractor labor rates to do it, but it worked.

Are you doing this for yourself or are you billing for it?

[bigviclbi]

Spray the rocks down with weedkiller and you won't have to worry about it.

[carcrz]

seriously. Take a garden hose & wash all the junk to the bottom. You'll have to do it again the further down you go because the debris won't get all the way to the bottom in one shot.

[capetan]

thats ridiculous....... i would stay away from customers like that :laugh:

[Smallaxe]

I have done this 2 different ways.
2 1/2 inch limestone piled in the woods for a couple of years with no cover needed to be cleaned of rotted leaves and moved. I set the blower speed and raked the stone off the pile across the blower path onto plywood so I could shovel it into the trailer.
I cleaned dirt and other debri from 1 1/2 in cobblestone in place. Been in that bed for years. I raked a bit of them into a pile along one edge exposing the dirt below. Washed the stones with a hose sprayer and collected the debri as necessary and continued that way around the entire bed.
It is much better to have the raking and the hosing going on simultaneausly, i.e. 2 people, but I was able to do it solo and it did not really take long. The clients were amazed because it was done just as a sidebar of some other work in that very spot.

[Daner]

I Use the pressure washer...just control your pressure so crap Isnt flying all over

[babyboomer1001]

Here is what we did. We have a screen with two handles at each end, just like wheel barrel handles. The rock goes on it and the debris falls through the holes - shake it a little. The landscape rock is left on top of the screen and the debris falls through the holes. Toss the good stuff in one pile for keeps and the debris is saved for the garbage or dump. When you choose screens, make sure the landscape rock is just a bit larger than the holes in the screen. Shovel a next load on top of the screen. I think the people my husband hired did it over a wheel barrel. If you can't find a screen with the handles, I suppose you could make one, out of chicken wire or something like that. I don't know where my husband got ours. Perhaps he made it. He is very intuitive. We had our entire front and back yard done. If there are leaves or large pieces of debris, I guess a blower or yard-type vacuum or reverse blower could be used first - I don't know what they are called. I see this questions is rather old but I don't see a good answer so if you still need to do this, here is how. It works well.

[rshoultz]

I put together a garden-sized machine, then let my neighbor used it after me. Took about an afternoon to do 1kft2. I have 2-3.5" granite so it saved me about $1.5k. You don't have to shake it or tip a heavy screen with all that rock on it. It empties right into the wheelbarrow so you only have to tip it back where you want it. I'm thinking of going into production with it. Consider this my high-priced market research. Comments? Anyone want to try it out?

[Chrysalis]

i had to do this recently with white marble chip. I took up all of it into a plastic bin, pressure wash, stir, repeat. It actually works really quickly. Before that I tried to pressure wash while still on the ground and it blew dirt and everything else everywhere. But large landscape boulders should be no problem with straight up pressure wash as long as you dont aim into the dirt. Make sure to wear safety glasses!

[White Gardens]

I used a cheaper plastic wheelbarrow that I drilled about 50 holes in to wash about 4 tons of rock in a landscape renovation I did last summer.

I used way too much water for how much dirt was in it.

This year I'm confiscating an old grain cleaner from the farm I grew up at. It has a 30 degree angle, electric motor, and is about 20 inches in diameter. It also has different size screens for it.

Potentially I want it to clean 85- 95 percent of the dirt out before I wash it. and it should go wayyyyy faster.

I think I'm also going to use it for some of the landscaping rock I buy new as it seems like every year it gets dirtier and dirtier. The grain cleaner should go right to the back of my truck and empty into a wheelbarrow.