A beautiful landscape design often doesn’t look complete without a walkway. Whether you’re creating a path through the lawn up to your front door or providing somewhere to walk through your flower gardens, a lovely path can be exactly what your landscape design needs. And while walkways can be time-consuming and somewhat labor-intensive to install, it’s not too much to tackle as a DIY project.
1) Plan Ahead
Use rope, garden hoses, or line-marking paint to give yourself an outline for the path. 3 to 4 feet wide is standard. Double-check that the path is the size and location that you want before you start digging. You don’t want to have to start over partway through! Next, use a square-edge spade or a sod-cutter to remove soil. The depth you need will depend on what you’re using for the path, so make sure you’ve picked out the material before you dig.
2) Level Foundation
Whether your new walkway will be made of paving stones, gravel, or a combination of the two it’s important to give the pathway a good foundation. If you have hard clay soil, you can just use that as the base. But in loamy or sandy soils, you’ll need to dig down an extra 2 inches and add a layer of crushed stone and stone dust to provide stability. Level the clay or stone, then use a hand tamper or plate compactor to give you a solid base to work on. After that, lay landscape fabric down to keep weeds from growing.
3) Make A Clean Edge
How you finish off the path edges is going to depend on what kind of path you put in. If you’re using gravel, then you need an edge to hold the gravel where it’s supposed to be. Galvanized steel, pressure-treated wood, cedar, bricks, cobblestones, or plastic edging are all good options. You can also use edging with paths made from paving stone, though you don’t always have to.
4) Maintain The Edge
The place where your path’s edge meets the lawn or garden is where weeds and grass are going to be the biggest problem. Left unchecked, they’ll grow right up over the edge of the path. To keep a clean edge between your lawn and the pathway use a powered edger about every other mowing, depending on how fast the grass grows.
5) Keep It Clean
For pathways with paving stones, use a broom to sweep dirt, cut grass, and other debris off the walkway. If there’s still dirt and grime on the pavers, rinse with water. Use warm water and mild dish soap to scrub stubborn dirt. For pathways made with gravel, raking every week or two is usually all the maintenance they need. You might occasionally have to fill-in hollow spots with extra gravel.
Blowers and powered sweepers are also good tools for keeping pathways clean. For these, and other tools you need to install and maintain a walkway, come visit us at Richardson Saw & Lawnmower.
