Walkways and garden paths — build the route people already take

Finding the real route before designing a nicer one

The worn line across the lawn is data. A path that fights the route people naturally take gets ignored, and the grass beside it stays dead. Curves should have a reason — going around something, or opening a view — rather than being decorative wiggles people cut across.

Watch for: A sweeping curved design on a straight desire line. It photographs well and gets short-cut within a month, leaving you with a path and a mud track.

Setting the width for how it is actually used

A main approach that two people should walk side by side is meaningfully wider than a secondary garden path. Width also has to allow for anything that will be pushed along it — a wheelbarrow, a mower, a stroller, a wheelchair — and for planting that will spill over the edges as it matures.

Watch for: A front walk narrowed to save material. It is the cheapest thing to get right at design stage and the most annoying to live with, and mature planting will effectively narrow it further every year.

Grading across and along the path

A walkway needs a slight cross-fall so water leaves it rather than pooling, and it has to relate sensibly to the ground on either side and to the door thresholds at each end. Where it crosses a natural drainage line, that water has to be dealt with rather than dammed.

Watch for: A path built as a low kerb across a slope, which turns it into a small dam. Water backs up behind it, saturates the base and, in a freezing climate, lifts the path.

Excavation and base for foot traffic

Topsoil and organics are removed and a compacted aggregate base is built — shallower than a driveway, but it still has to be compacted properly and it still has to drain. Narrow excavations are actually harder to compact well than wide ones.

Watch for: A path base compacted with a plate that barely fits the trench, or not at all "because it is only a walkway". Narrow paved strips settle unevenly and unevenly is what trips people.

Edge restraint on both sides

A walkway has a very high edge-to-area ratio, so proportionally it depends on its edges far more than a patio does. Both sides need restraint pinned into base that extends past the paving.

Watch for: Edging on the flowerbed side only, or restraint that stops where the path meets a lawn. That side spreads first, the joints open, and the outer course starts to rock.

Setting the surface with consistent footing

Units are laid and levelled with attention to the walking plane rather than to individual pieces. On irregular stone this means spending the time to bring the top surfaces flush; on stepping stones it means setting each one at the right spacing for a natural stride.

Watch for: Any lip between adjacent units at handover. On a patio it is a nuisance; on a walkway at night it is a trip hazard, and it is the most common complaint about installed paths.

Steps, transitions and the door threshold

Where a path changes level, riser heights have to be consistent and the transitions at the house and at the street have to be clean. This is often where a walkway job quietly turns into a steps job.

Watch for: One odd step in an otherwise even flight, or a single small step at a door. Both are exactly where people fall, because the eye does not register them.

Lighting, planting edges and cleanup

Low-voltage path lighting is far easier to run while the trench is open than afterwards. Planting beside the path should be chosen knowing it will grow into the walking width, and the turf edges are restored so mowing does not fight the path.

Watch for: Sleeves for lighting or irrigation not being laid while the ground is open. It costs almost nothing at that moment and means cutting the finished path later. Path lighting itself is an electrical job — see the electrical trade's lighting page.