Garden Structures: Paths and Walkways
Paths and walkways are important in our gardens. Most of them emerge naturally as we move about the gardens and help direct us to our destinations. They can be straight or meandering depending on the focus and the garden. At times they’re straight because it’s most efficient, sometimes they curve naturally because we must skirt a steep slope.
Some areas in our garden deserve dedicated pathways others do not. The destination of the walkway or path will also determine it’s width, if it’s a path that you roll down with a wheelbarrow you’ll need it to be wider than path that only gets foot traffic. Think of your garden walkways as the road system or infrastructure of your garden. There are big multi-lane highways, regular two lane roads, small one lane country roads and bike or walking trails. The destination and use of the garden path will determine how wide to make it and what materials it should be paved with.
How can you determine where your paths and walkways should be? I’m sure there are all kinds of thoughts on this. I perfer to let a garden evolve naturally. Your garden is a process not a destination. Live in your garden for a few years and the natural paths and walkways will emerge. You’ll notice areas where the lawn is worn away by foot traffic. When you let your paths evolve organically, they’ll seem natural and established. You won’t regret adding a curve here or not adding on there. You paths will be installed along already established natural traffic patterns in your garden.
Like all other garden structures, paths and walkways can be made of just about any material. From beautiful Kentucky bluestone (one of my personal favorites) to pine needles raked from the nearby forrest floor. Some elements look more natural than others and your overall garden style will determine which ones look best. The destination of the path will also determine what the path is made of. A beautifully bluestone walkways all the way to the compost pile out back would be outrageous and a waste of money, but it would be a beautiful focal point paving the walkway to the front door. Simple natural mulch would be best suited for the path to the compost pile.
The material you choose for paving will also change the feel of the journey. Walking on soft quiet pine needles is completely different than walking on a crunchy gravel walkway. The pathway surface can also decide the speed at which you can travel. Paths paved in large uneven rocks make you walk more slowly than a concrete walkway. Take all of these things into consideration when choosing materials.
I haven’t laid out many specified walkways in my garden, but I’m getting ready to spend some time defining them. Throughout the nine years we’ve lived here, paths and walkways have naturally emerged as we have established the best ways to get to and from specific areas and features of the garden. There’s a clearly defined a path worn in the grass because we always take the same route we go to the compost pile. We have another one that weaves through the side garden as we go from the front yard to the rain barrels. We also one that cuts across the front yard, and one that goes from the side garden to the back of the lot. Even our pets use the pathways in our gardens.
I have established small pathways that weave through the garden beds to spigots and to allow entry to the back of very deep foundation plantings. These paths are simply large flat rocks placed throughout the beds. Some are laid out in a straight path, others are randomly scattered so I can step from one another to avoid stepping on the soil.
As with most garden features, I’m partial to using natural elements. I like a nice stone walkway. As I’ve mentioned before, we have plenty of stone in our gardens, so we make good use of this resource by using it for many projects. I have built a few small paths through the flower beds to the outdoor spigots using flat rocks. Our main pathways will hopefully be paved with stones like this one from the National Gardens in Washington D.C.
Do you have dedicated paths and walkways in your garden that you have paved with something? What’s your favorite walkway material?
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Structural Elements: Arbors, Trellises and Pergolas
Arbors, trellises, and pergolas add great structure to the garden because they add a vertical element that is often lacking, especially in vegetables gardens. They are especially helpful in the winter garden when covered in dormant vines, or when cleaned of plant material and simply left to preserve the garden’s shape while the plants take a long winter nap.
Arbors and trellis help train plants by providing support for vines and climbers. They help keep these plants within their boundaries, which can be important for vines that like to ramble far and wide. We can use them to keep the clematis climbing the porch post, keep the cucumbers up off the ground, or to support the weight of juicy red tomatoes.
Since they allow us to grow upward, they allow for better use of space, particularly in small gardens. A tomato takes up much less space if trained up a support than if left to sprawl along the ground.
As with all garden features, arbors and trellises can be made of a wide variety of materials from crisp wood painted white, to saplings cleared from another part of the garden. They also come in all shapes and sizes from grand structures spanning hundreds of feet, a few stick of bamboo thrust into the garden to support a few peas.
I love arbors and trellises. Perhaps it’s because I have a fondness for flowering vines, or maybe I just love the beauty they add to the garden. Sadly I have no arbors in my garden and only one trellis. A couple years ago Mr Chiots built me this nice large cedar trellis on our garage wall. It’s planted with hops and clematis and occasionally a few sweet peas. I don’t have a photo of it, but you can see it here behind the hydrangeas and here’s a young clematis vine that’s growing on it.
I have a particulary fondness for arbors and trellises made of found materials like saplings and small trees. I was especially impressed by these when I visited the vegetable garden at Monticello.
I’m hoping that I can build a few small trellises for my garden this summer. They won’t be anything grand, although I do dream of having a nice arbor over my garage door draped in grape vines and a few beautiful old fashioned climbing roses scampering up my front porch posts. Vertical elements is something I need to work on my garden! If I had to choose a favorite climbing plant it would probably be the hydrangea vine. I have a few starts I got from my mom’s neighbor this past year, they take a while to get established but I can’t wait!
Do you have arbors and trellises in your garden? What’s your favorite climbing plant?
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Structural Elements: Garden Edging
Edging plays an important role of setting boundaries for specific parts of the garden. Not only does it provide a clear visual edge to different garden spaces, it keeps the lawn out of the flowerbeds and the peppermint out of the edible beds. Edging can be made of all sorts of things, from concrete and bricks, to metal or wood or a simple edge cut with a shovel. My mom’s neighbor uses cinder blocks for her raised beds in her edible garden.
I like edging my flowerbeds with stone. I have plenty of those in the garden and I think they help tidy up the edges. I have a few spots that I need to redo the edging because I want to expand the flower beds. Since our lot slopes fairly steeply towards the street, these work perfectly to keep the soil in the bed where it belongs. I like to cut a crisp in the grass in 3-4 inches in front of the stone edging because it looks nice and it makes mowing much easier.
This spring I need to add a row of large rocks along the lower side of my driveway. Since it slopes down towards the street and to one side, the gravel has a tendency to migrate into the flowerbed on the lower side. It’s quite annoying when I want to work in that flowerbed and have to spend half my time picking gravel out of the soil. It will also help with erosion control in the lower flowerbed as it will slow the water running off the driveway. I already have a pile of rocks that I’ve been collecting just for this purpose. Since it is the driveway, I’ll need to use larger rocks so they don’t get pushed out of the way easily. I should be able to collect enough large rocks from the various piles I’ve made around the gardens for this purpose.
If I didn’t have rocks all over my property I would consider using bricks as edging. I love the look of red brick like this beautiful edging around the kitchen garden at Ash Lawn Highland. I also love brick walkways as well, there’s something very classic about them.
I’ll stick with stone in my garden since it’s free and it looks really nice with my cottage gardens.
How do you edge your flowerbeds? What kind would you use in your dream garden?
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Structural Elements in the Garden
I’m currently reading Smith & Hawken Garden Structures by Linda Joan Smith and really enjoying it. This is the time of year in the north, structural elements are important in the garden. Since most plants have no leaves, there isn’t much left in the garden. If you don’t have shrubs, obelisks, fences or walls, you’re left with a flat expanse of snow.
Structural elements bring beauty and interest to the garden all year long, even when the plants are dormant. They can range from a simple path of native stone to grand fountains and everything in between.
Structural elements need not be hardscaping, they can be benches, obelisks, sculptures and even shrubs or trees. Potted plants can become structural elements in the garden if used properly and arranged in an artful manner. Of course these have to protected in cold northern climates and generally can’t be left in the garden during winter.
This is one area I really need to work on in the gardens at Chiot’s Run, my gardens are in need of more winter interest. I’ve been putting it off for a variety of reasons; time, lack of inspiration, the cost and I’ve been focusing on improving the soil above all other garden tasks. My goal this winter is to finalize a few plans for trellises, arbors, fences, walkways and other structural elements that I can incorporate over the next couple years.
If money was not an issue, I would have a big glass conservatory in my garden. A place to spend cold winter days, growing citrus trees and tropical plants. I may have a small greenhouse in my garden someday, but I’ll never have something as grand as what’s at Stan Hywet or Longwood Gardens. I’d also love to have tall stone walls surrounding a perennial garden with a reflecting pool, like this one at Stan Hywet.
If money weren’t an issue, what kind of structural element would you incorporate into your garden?
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Quote of the Day: Fences
Put a fence or wall around a garden and there’s now an inside and an outside. You’ve set off private from public and defined the garden’s limits. There’s a sense of belonging and of ownership, of stewardship over the land that the walls encompass. You’ve also defined the scope of your work and delineated the size of your canvas.
Linda Joan Smith (Smith & Hawken Garden Structures)
I love fences, of all shapes and sizes. There’s just something wonderful about a fence enclosing a garden, this quote is very true, it define’s the garden’s limits. I love how fences hide part of the garden, they almost beckon you to peek over. You know you’ll find blooms and lovely things hiding on the other side.
We have a fence along part of one of our property lines. The previous owners installed it and did it very poorly. We’ve taken down part of the fence because it was leaning heavily to one side and we plan on removing the rest of it. It’s a plain wooden picket fence, which is actually quite nice in the garden.
Whenever we’re out driving around I find myself drawn to gardens with fences. Here are a few images of fences I’ve collected during my travels including:
Eliot Coleman’s Four Season Farm in Harborside, Maine. It’s simple and utilitarian, yet beautiful in it’s own way, mostly because the setting behind it is so extraordinary.
I’m particularly drawn to stone fences/walls for some reason, probably because of the amount of this we have around Chiot’s Run. Whenever I think of stone garden enclosures I automatically thing of the Nearing’s Forrest Farm.
White fences are very classic and always lovely no matter what they surround. I really liked the ones at Ash Lawn Highland that surrounded the pastures and the kitchen garden.
I couldn’t forget to mention the huge fence installed by Thomas Jefferson around the vegetables garden at Monticello. This is the kind I really need around Chiot’s Run to protect us from all those deer.
Fences come in all shapes and sizes and can be made of just about anything, from old drift wood or saplings to neatly clipped shrubs. I really want to install a fence around my garden here at Chiot’s Run, I just need to settle on the materials and the design. I guess since I pretty much love all fences I probably will love whatever I end up putting in.
Do you have a fence around your garden? What’s your favorite type of fence?
