Building Garden Paths and Flower Beds On the Cheap

We recently added a large back yard. Toward the back of the yard is our perennial bed and gold fish pond. There’s just an empty space between the house and the garden with freshly sprouted grass.

I stood at the house and looked toward the pond and imagined the path I walk to get there. If I made that path a real path it seemed like it would add a lot to the yard. I took a rope and laid it out where I thought the path should go.

I like to work with materials I already have or with free materials. So I always question what I already have. A large pile of oak chips that came from the tree that fell on the neighbor’s house last year comes to mind. The neighbor asked if they could dump the chips over our bank in the back. The wood was in good condition when it got chopped up. So if I laid the oak chips down for a path, they would need something to contain them so they don’t end up in the grass.

Our pondless waterfall we’ve been building has had us carrying rocks back from the river so my next thought is of some small flat rocks. The next trip to the river I filled 3 five gallon buckets with small flat rocks.

First I sorted my rocks by size and started with the smallest ones at one end of the newly envisioned path. I made two rows with the rocks about 40″ apart and put the wood chips in between the rows of rocks. Later that afternoon I had a beautiful looking path and what a change it made to the yard.

You could also consider using short fencing, bricks, pavers, small tree trunks, crushed stones, or bark chips for materials. Use your imagination to come up with materials for your path.

Last week a visitor mentioned how beautiful the yard looked and how great the path was. He said to his wife “Look at what her husband did. (why do the men always get the credit?) He built that path for free. We just spent $6000 for pavers to do the same thing!”