the garden path
Myrth
I work in a demo garden and path material is a real issue. The garden is on
the closed, lined section of a landfill. Water is a real factor since it is a
lot like working with a perched watertable. I would be interested in hearing
some ideas on what others have used and:
1. how well it kept the weeds down
2. how it is to walk (wheel) on
3. a general idea of cost
Portsigns
How heavy is your foot traffic? If light then we have areas that grass is the
"path". On heavy traveled paths I've 1.removed grass 2. laid down black
plastic 3. dumped gravel and spread it. Works well, pretty cost effective and
you can do it all by yourself!
Mattison
Portsigns (port...@aol.com) wrote:
: How heavy is your foot traffic? If light then we have areas that grass is the
: "path". On heavy traveled paths I've 1.removed grass 2. laid down black
: plastic 3. dumped gravel and spread it. Works well, pretty cost effective and
: you can do it all by yourself!
Black plastic is very bad for the soil. Do not use it. There are newer
landscpae fabrics to use instead.
I used to design special nature trails and native plant gardens for
several California Park Departments and one of the best path material for
high or low traffic is decomposed granite.
The path needs to be graded correctly, excavate 4". The first three inches is
for you compacted base rock. The last inch is for the decomposed granite
mixed with a binder. The path must have header (border) the least
expensive is 3 ply redwood or plastic (kinda manufactured looking but
durable - I never use it but you might). 3 ply is used for all curves,
2x4 redwood header for all straight runs. I have gone to 4 ply. on the
curves lately looks very nice and lasts even longer.
When the material first goes down it looks like gravel, in time with
people walking on it, the granite compacts to make a nice hard walking
surface. D/G drains nicely, is not muddy and if prepared on base rock
lasts quite a long time. For a nice effect you can also use flagstones
or any 1" or greater depth stone in the D/G too. If there is lots of
public traffic though - stick to simple D/G it comes in three colors
gold, grey and somethimes red.
Mattison FitzGerald
Landscape Designer
http://www.rhinodev.com/M
Englishla
I just came from a trade show where I got to see Horticopia and Micke Dirr's
programs run and I think I understand their relative usefulness in a new way.
Horticopia is a specifying program, meaning you can select a zone, plant
characteristics and exposure characteristics to generate a list of
possibilities. It has a good photo library and text library. The image of the
plant and the text can be combined on one sheet and printed out so that it
could be made into a custom plant binder for your site. You can also add
personal comments to the text area. Dirr's CD ROM is superior in its plant
images but lacks the text files. You could pair it with Corelworks or MSworks
by importing the photo image in and adding in your own information to create a
custom lists. Dirr's image resolution is better, as are the plant detail shots
that are available. You can add text directly to the Dirr program but it's
not savable unless you do it through the auxillary program. Both programs can
create a "slide show" of images to show yourself or a client. The cost of
each (Horticopia and Dirr) are comparable. There is also an herbaceous
Horticopia module. As I understood it, the information on Horticopia cannot
(at this time) be imported to another program application, but they are
working on that.
engl...@aol.com (Ann English)