Beth Turlington/Wichita County Master Gardeners
With the Lee Valley garden template, even the art challenged can create a workable map of their gardens.
Over the course of these weekly columns, we’ve talked about trees and shrubs, the right plants to choose, proper planting and watering and even yard art. This week I thought looking at pathways through your landscape would be a nice idea.
Walks and pathways can be short and simple or long and winding creations depending upon the size of your yard and wallet. First things first, though.
Are you going to do the work or are you going to hire a professional? Either way, do some research first. I like having a book in my hand, and two that I really like are “Sunset Books Landscaping with Stone” and “Creative Homeowner’s Walk, Walls and Patios.” Both have excellent photos and drawings along with well-written, easy-to-understand instructions from start to finish. There’s also You Tube (www.youtube.com), where you can watch videos of people doing step-by-step construction. You do have to watch out for the videos that don’t apply to the real world that will come up. You can Google or Bing garden path construction and go through those lists. If you’re going to hire the job out, look into the contractor you pick as well. Talk to people they’ve done work for so you don’t end up with an expensive mess.
Take a stroll through your landscape and decide where you’d like your path to be, from start to finish. Consider what you’d like it to be made from. You can have a low-mowed defined grass path or a solid-edged path filled with pea grave. There are preformed pavers of various shapes and sizes or you can go with natural stone. Once you get that sorted out, draw it out on paper. Coming from a woman who can’t draw a straight line with a ruler, that may seem like a lot to ask for. But there are tools to help even the most artistically challenged like me. I ordered a really cool design template from Lee Valley Tools (www.leevalley.com) that makes it so easy to draw in trees, shrubs, fences and such. Graph paper is your other best friend when drawing out your landscape and there are books to help as well.
Another idea is garden design software, which can be rather pricey, although some will offer a free trial for a certain number of days. On the Better Homes and Gardens website, I found a design tool that is helpful and honestly its fun to play with. You can choose different house types or yard layouts and add fences, flower pots and arbors. Put in grass, add paths and pick the materials. It also has a plant selector from trees down to groundcovers. The only problem with it is that it’s “one size fits all” with plants that won’t grow or survive here and there are some invasive. You can save your designs; print them out or erase and start over. It won’t fill all your needs, but like I said, it’s fun to mess with.
At some point, it’s actually going to get cold out and you’ll be stuck in the house. That’s the perfect time to lay out your corner of heaven on paper and decide where you’d like to place some new things. I have this vision in my head of the flagstone path I want out here and I’ve started to draw it out. Unfortunately I didn’t win that big Power Ball jackpot, so it may stay stuck in my head for a while …
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