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GARDEN WALKWAY

Many a garden is highlighted by a walkway that leads to and complements the spectacular plantings and other interesting features.

WalkwayA garden walkway is the route you take to gain access to your flower beds, vegetable plots, and other features that make up your backyard. However, given just a little thought, it can be so much more than a mere access to the garden. While a garden walkway serves a practical purpose, it can also add aesthetic appeal to your backyard. Depending on the atmosphere you want to create, you can make it direct, or winding, and by simply using different materials you can change the entire atmosphere of your landscape. To get from one level to another you can  also incorporate steps as an added attraction.

By carefully designing your own path you will be able to manipulate what your visitors will see and attract attention to your treasured garden themes.  Also, a well-designed garden walkway not only leads you through your backyard, but keeps your feet dry.

Plan

Tuscany Fountain
Let a garden walkway lead you to
special features in your garden
Before you start, be sure to draw up a site plan. Being able to see what you have got laid out on paper makes it much easier to identify underlying design elements such as traffic patterns, scale, and symmetry. If you choose to hire a professional landscaper or designer to help you with your site plan, it will probably be money well spent, as they will always give you a valuable new insight on your yard. If costs are prohibitive, you could ask them to just design the entry to the garden walkway. One well-conceived and well-executed feature may go a long way toward identifying a design style that you can identify with and continue on from that point.

You will first need to consider where you would like the garden walkway to start and end. Then focus on what you appreciate in your yard and what you would like to be seen.

Features

Strategically placed plants or ornaments will enhance your stroll along your path. Choose from any number of plants that will, with their colour and fragrance, capture your attention while you wander along the garden walkway, and invite you to pause awhile. Maybe a birdbath or water feature is more to your taste, even a bench on a bend, so you can pause, sit and appreciate your features even more.

Designing a garden walkway will enable you to be the guide; a point to note is that the best garden walkways often copy and follow the natural settings. A path that curves around a bend will encourage visitors to explore and narrower paths tend to make people walk slower so they will be better able to appreciate the surroundings. Visitors should not be able to see everything at once so create a mysterious garden by having a barrier, such as a group of bushes, and wind the walkway around it.

Bench
A Teak bench will encourage you to
pause and enjoy the sights
Materials

If you’re looking for a path with minimal labor, a stepping-stone path can easily be laid over the weekend on an average sized block. They come in a huge assortment of shapes and sizes and material, and this type of walkway could be constructed using wooden blocks, flagstones or any other flat material that isn’t unnatural in its shape. They can be above ground level or set at ground level, but keep them evenly spaced. Surrounding them with pebbles can set them off nicely.

A very easy path to enhance most areas can be created with pebbles, gravel, river stones, crushed limestone or hard packed earth can be made into a very charming garden walkway, weaving through and highlighting your favorite parts of the garden. The advantage of these types of paths is that they are very easy to maintain.

Another great option for weaving a walkway through your garden would be concrete-pavers; again you have great choices with designs, shapes and colour. However they can be quite demanding for some because you do need special equipment, plus a strong back. There are lots of specialists who can do a good job in a fraction of the time you would take by yourself. Choose carefully as this type of garden walkway will be there for a long time, and will also allow for heavy traffic such as wheelchairs and wheelbarrows. However a great way to make a concrete path is by using Stone Molds. Just prepare the ground, place the mold, fill with cement, trowel smooth and remove the mold.

Synthetic Pavers Here is an easy way to create a custom walkway in just minutes! Sold in sets of 12 or 20, each faux stone tile measures 16″ square. The interlocking pavers are constructed of lightweight and weather impervious polypropylene. Just lay them on any unpaved surface – it doesn’t get any simpler! Forget the hassle of heavy brick pavers, digging and leveling; this modular system is the quickest and easiest way of DIY landscaping!
Solar Lights icon


Lighting

Lighting your garden walkway is easy as there are many choices available. Solar lighting technology is getting better every year and when evening falls, a solar light icon will turn on automatically to illuminate a path or accent your flower beds.

Whatever kind of garden walkway you choose you will be more than satisfied with a job well done.