How To Use A Riding Lawn Mower To Smooth A Gravel Driveway

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A riding lawn mower is actually a surprisingly versatile piece of equipment. First and foremost of course, a quality mower is invaluable for cutting your grass at the proper height. However, riding mowers can be used for a variety of other tasks ranging from towing trailers to removing snow from your lawn. If you happen to have a gravel driveway, you can even use a riding mower to help keep it smooth and level. In fact, using a riding or zero-turn lawn mower to smooth out the ruts, tire tracks, and shallow depressions in a gravel driveway is quite simple so long as you have the proper attachment and follow a few basic steps.

Every time a vehicle moves across a gravel driveway or a heavy rain hammers it, individual pieces of gravel shift and migrate. As a result, gravel driveways end up with uneven rock distribution, ruts, and potholes. Most often, this can be remedied by regrading the driveway, which essentially redistributes the gravel to smooth and level the driveway surface. Sometimes a tractor, dragging a grader, is the chosen route. But a riding lawn mower fitted with one of several attachment options can easily take care of this maintenance chore.

There are a number of different grading accessories that work with riding lawn mowers or lawn tractors. A number of gravel graders are on the market, which have the ability to dig beneath the surface gravel to help loosen and reshape the base and medium gravel layers as needed. A box blade attachment can also be used to accomplish the same thing. For simply maintaining or smoothing a gravel surface, you can use something like the GoPlus driveway drag or a chain harrow.

Once you have your attachment of choice, the process for smoothing your gravel driveway using a riding mower is relatively simple. First, regardless of the implement you are using, always disengage your PTO or mower blades before attempting to work on your driveway. Next, mount the attachment to the rear of your mower. From that point, the steps will vary depending on if you need to grade and level or simply smooth your driveway.

If you are fixing low spots, humps, potholes, or washouts, adjust the grader scarifier teeth or cutting edge on the box blade to dig an inch or two beneath the gravel. Make a slow path over the driveway to break up compacted gravel and loosen the soil. Then, with the scarifier teeth raised or a box blade in the smoothing position, make successive passes over the driveway to even out any high or low spots. Finally, create a slight crown in the center of your driveway, to aid in drainage, by making passes down each side with the blade angled slightly.

To smooth off a gravel driveway with a driveway drag or chain harrow, it is simply a matter of making repeated passes up and down the driveway. If you need to loosen compact gravel with these implements, then adding weight — such as cinder blocks or tires — on top of the drag can help. You can also redistribute loose gravel and fill in low spots with a drag or harrow by steering in a winding, serpentine manner as you move up and down your driveway. Regardless of which attachments you use, it's a good idea to do this leveling and smoothing as part of preparing a gravel driveway for winter, as well as after any heavy rainfall.