Design a garden path to spare your lawn

Hosea Omole

All gardens have paths, planned or otherwise. Where garden paths do not exist, users will form their own on the lawn over time. A well designed path will keep your feet dry and provide a safe and easy access to your house and garden whilst sparing your lawn too much foot traffic.

A great path does more — it provides a link between the house and the garden, both visually and physically. It also makes the garden experience more exciting. When planning your garden, paths define and shape garden spaces and connect unrelated areas to create a coherent whole. Here are some guidelines on how to design your garden paths.

Routing

Routing your garden paths is an important step that should be integrated into the wider process of site planning. The paths will determine whether people will even use them or not. The cardinal rule here is that paths should always lead somewhere.

When planning your site, identify the major destinations including entrances to the house, parking, different garden rooms and features, focal points and any other spaces you would like your family and visitors to access.

Be careful not to have too many though. One path can serve several destinations. People have a natural tendency to use the most direct route to a given destination. Design your paths so that each area can be accessed as directly as possible. If you are faced with any natural obstacles such as trees, moulds or rock outcrops, curve around them. You may also want to create a bit of surprise. Instead of straight paths that summarise your garden in one episode, reveal your destinations progressively by curving paths around obstacles so that the visitor does not see his or her destination until he or she gets closer.

Size and function

The function of the path also determines how you route it. For instance, a path that is purely for leading people from one point to another should be straight forward as compared to a private path designed for an evening stroll. The latter should curve lazily and allow people to take in the garden’s sights and sounds.

The width of a garden path depends on its function as well as the expected traffic levels. For purposes of planning, paths are generally classified into two categories: primary paths and secondary paths. Primary paths are the main routes in the garden. Small residential gardens may have just one or two. They are designed to accommodate three or more people walking side by side and are often over 1,800mm wide. Secondary paths should branch off from the primary path and serve smaller and more private garden spaces.

Once you have decided the widths of you paths, you may want to enhance the main paths by adding a bit of interest to the visitor’s experience.

You can erect a pergola or trellises above the path. The shadows cast by such structures will change as the sun moves from east to west.

Planting trees along the path will have a similar effect. Shrubbery and flowers planted along the edges of a path help soften and make a strong path less intrusive.

You will, however, need to leave a good allowance on either side to accommodate plants that spread into the path.