Some people have said I have a strange way of creating this garden. In my mind, I can see where everything is supposed to be; and when I began to implement my plan I would measure off space and outline the edges of a garden with outdoor spray paint. So the herb garden went in first, right in the middle, then the fire pit garden to the south of that and the womb of the earth to the north. Then I carved out space for the south willow garden and the butterfly garden. Sometime in there the lawns went in. The front lawns first in 2006 and then the rear lawn in 2012. To get from garden to garden you either walked across a lawn or through a dirt trail, which during part of the year was impossible because the clay turns to a slippery sticky mess.
It is time to put in some official, hard surface and dry, walkways. The walkways have already been delineated by the rock edging of the gardens or by the edging of the lawns. So all that was needed was to put down some weed barrier, tuck it under the rock edging and bring in the rock.
I bought a heavy duty, 1/8″ thick felt product from Gardener’s Supply. Yikes! was it expensive, but it really works. by the time I got half way done with the entire walkway, I had ran out of fabric, and I didn’t want to wait to order more by mail so I put down double layers of the standard grey weed barrier. I went through 2 rolls of fabric, 12′ wide by 300′ long.
The walkway curves around the rear fescue lawn and extends all the way past the firepit. This stretch of walkway is pretty straight, due west, and is 8′ wide to allow easy access by multiple people to the firepit for ceremony and drum circle.
The walkway ends at the beginning of the Garden of Pain because that garden will have a walkway made of different materials. But not this year.
I brought the rock in one pickup truck load at a time. Our old 2000 Ford F-150, 1/2 ton has close to 300K miles on it, so I had the materials yard load the truck in 900 pound loads – making them weigh it as it was loaded. I was a real pain in their butt, I know it, but I was not going to break that old truck’s back. She is a trooper and has done us right. In the spring I was able to drive the truck right up to where I was spreading the rock; but towards the end of summer, I had to load it wheel barrow at a time, and push it across the yard. In June I had Jester dig out the giant Rosa Rugosa’s from the front rose garden and plant them at the edges of the Garden of Pain, so the truck would no longer fit through there.
As you can see by the last picture, it took till fall to get it all done. I used “rainbow granite blend” from Pioneer Sand and Gravel, 3″ thick.