I just bought a new house and planned to put daffodils and vinca in the planting area just in front of the foundation. I discovered that the previous owners had put down a layer of white gravel (which I'm not fond of) to help prevent weeds. Several layers apparently. It goes down at least 6-8 inches, with some soil mixed in, maybe 40% soil at best in some areas, less in others. What should I do? Dig it all out and put in soil? Dig out some of it and mix with topsoil? Just leave it and try to plant the dafs and vinca anyway? Any other suggestions?

The gravel would make it dry out very quickly. You might want to remove some of the gravel, into a bucket/s and put it like mulch AFTER you plant the flowers

6-8" of gravel, possibly marble chips weighs tons. You can't move it in buckets. I have the same thing on my east facing flower bed and around my back door. I just left it alone.
What can you do with tons of gravel? Not much unless you have $$$$$ to get rid of it!!!

If it was me, I'd try planting the daffodils in the gravel.
When I put down small pebble pathways through people's flower gardens, the dropped seeds come up like crazy in the pebbles!

I don't know what size gravel you have, but I suspect that the daffodils won't mind... Especially when considering the amount of rainfall that you get...

Daffodils are tough, tough, tough!
One time, I forgot some daffodil bulbs in a trash bag...
I found them later... like a couple years, or more... by seeing the yellow in the weeds! How ever long those daffodils were in that trash bag in the weeds, they didn't die... No reason to doubt they would be just as tough at your house.

What do you mean by vinca? Annual Madagascar periwinkle?
Or that invasive blue flowering stuff?

I encourage everyone to rethink planting that stuff... Impossible to remove once it starts getting away from us!

Just a double check... are you 100 % sure that the stone is not there for any type of drainage help for your foundation or basement?

May the remainder of the week be enjoyable!

Welcome to the site!

Daughter had rock mulch in her front garden of the home she purchased. She offered up the rock mulch for free on a site, it was gone within a few days.
Daffs like good drainage, if you are unable to give the gravel away, I would try to take out half of the amount, mix the remaining amount with the soil and plant away.
Like Stone said, Vinca can be invasive depending on its site, I have vinca in Zone4B and it stays very contained.

[quote="stone"] What do you mean by vinca?


I have no idea. Vinca minor maybe? 6-8" evergreen ground cover. Everyone here has some because bedrock comes to the surface all over the place and it's hard to do a real garden or even a lawn. The stuff my mom had for 30 years did not spread a lot, just needed to be thinned out once in a while.

Gravel is robin egg sized stones, mostly smooth, not the very white angular quartz. I guess I'll just add some composted soil and bone meal (somebody said....) to the holes and hope for the best.

Somebody else is going to have to do the digging 😁 I have neither the tools nor the strength to get through all this rock. My little trowel barely made a dent.

I think I would call your product, rock, not gravel. Gravel has rocks, sand, and clay. Some plants love to grow in gravel! I'd help you because I want to become a gardening focused handyman. Too bad I live 15 hours away.

Further to what Rubi said about plants which grow very well in gravel:
Below: part of the scree bed (all gravel in this case) at Merlin's Hollow, Aurora, On.
The purple one (some is pink too) is spring pea (Lathrys vernus) (May 9, 2015).


Certainly beyond my energy (and confidence) level, the owner, David Tomlinson has sunk, into the scree area, old paddling pools, filled them with muck, with water added each spring. This enabled him to grow wetland plants in the scree area. The primula here is Primula aurantiaca (July 4, 2009)

If I were you, I'd get rid of it completely. I just hate gravel in every way...That said, it might end up being quite costly though.

If you do decide to, get in a topsoil that is of equal composition and texture of your native one (sand,silt, clay) or as close to to prevent water infiltration issues.

And please don't dig it in If you happen to have clay or silty soil, the % of the gravel in the resulting volume mix needs to be AT LEAST half to have a positive effect on drainage. In any other case, it doesn't do anything or perhaps even worsten it.

KateNY said:[quote="stone"] What do you mean by vinca?


I have no idea. Vinca minor maybe? 6-8" evergreen ground cover. Everyone here has some because bedrock comes to the surface all over the place and it's hard to do a real garden or even a lawn. The stuff my mom had for 30 years did not spread a lot, just needed to be thinned out once in a while.

Gravel is robin egg sized stones, mostly smooth, not the very white angular quartz. I guess I'll just add some composted soil and bone meal (somebody said....) to the holes and hope for the best.

Somebody else is going to have to do the digging 😁 I have neither the tools nor the strength to get through all this rock. My little trowel barely made a dent.

Vinca with the pretty blue flowers that always escapes cultivation and then... crowds out all the wonderful understory native plants that are needed by the wildlife...

Do you know how people "force" bulbs in the winter?
They fill a bowl with those round pebbles... balance the bulbs on top of the rocks, and then add a little water being careful that the bulbs aren't setting in standing water...

the bulbs send roots through the pebbles, and grow leaves, and eventual blooms.

Those round pebbles will be just fine as a bulb bed... shouldn't be any need to amend the planting holes for daffodil.

Rather than trying to plant bulbs with a trowel, use a digging shovel.