Paths - review

Garden paths tend to be:

• too wide
• too parallel
• too impervious
• too often made with concrete slabs

As the photographs (right) show, garden paths can:

• have unsealed (un-mortared) joints
• be made of timber
• be made of rammed or beaten earth
• be made of loose (un-mortared) stone

• almost 2 years ago Tom said

  Rammed earth is normally a technique for building walls, which are then 'roofed' (eg with thatch or tiles) to keep them dry. For a garden path: (1) it would be best to use unsorted grave and compress it with a roller or pneumatic hammer (2)if you have a free-draining subsoil, this could be used instead of gravel, (3) it would also be possible to incorporate cement mortar with the soil to stabilize it (4) as sheep tracks and trodden earth in vegetable gardens demonstrate it is possible to create a 'path' simply by treading the soil.

• almost 2 years ago Robert Boswell Design Consultancy said

  Can anyone tell me how to make a rammed or beaten earth path?