Rocks in the soil

[R2k]

I'm trying to help some trouble areas in my lawn. They're next to my driveway, sidewalks, and the road's concrete curbs. Year after year these spots will not sustain grass. I'm already noticing with a bit of heat and a tiny amount of drought, these areas are starting to show stress for the first time this year.

When I was taking soil samples today with a soil probe, I noticed that all these trouble spots only go down 1" to 2.5" before...ROCKS! Every time I put the soil core probe in these trouble spots, I always hit rocks that stop the probe before 2.5". I guess that would be a pretty good reason for the constant stress in these areas year after year.

It's crazy. I just watered these areas for an hour by hand yesterday and they're very dry today when pulling cores....it's 68 degrees today. The rest of my lawn stays beautiful, but these trouble areas always come up again year after year starting in June and it's almost certain death by July/August.

Just checking to see if this is a common problem?

Assuming the best solution is to dig out the rocks to a depth of 4 to 5 inches.

I don't know concrete well. After the concrete has been poured and cured...is there a good reason that the rocks in the soil next to the concrete need to stay?

Thanks


From August 8th 2022:

[MorpheusPA]

There's not much you can do, really. If you want to lift the sod, dig the soil, sift the rocks, and put it back (replacing it with new soil--not potting soil as that's organics and they'll just rot, you'll want to match your soil type), you could, though. It's a lot of work.

I have a burn point at the side of my driveway from the sand underlay. I've poured on the organics over the years, water more at that spot...and it still burns in July and August, at least somewhat, just due to the fact that there's black tarmac a foot away that surface heats to 160 degrees.

[R2k]

I'm going to give it a go with the digging next week. Just waiting for utilities to mark their stuff. The grass is still alive but wilting pretty good. If I don't do anything it'll die anyways. I'm trying to limp it along with watering until I can dig.

Hoping to get to it now will give it a chance, but I expect the worst since I'll be lifting the sod and things are already heating up.

At least I'm not the only one. My house faces south, so everything there gets the full-on sun throughout the day. Luckily I've got some soil from my backyard that I can amend with (silt). I had added some topsoil in some of these troublespot over the years and I've realized now a lot of it is sand...which is not what I need. Going to get any sand out of there if it's not too much work and replace it with my backyard silt soil.

Glad I have the pictures of all the dead spots from last year to help work as a map.