When it comes to landscaping ideas, Phoenix residents can agree on one thing: Not every idea works for every garden.
Creating a beautiful home landscape is like painting in 3-D. Designing an inspiring landscape includes choosing unique trees, plants, flowers and other features to tell a compelling story. One essential thing homeowners typically ignore when creating an outstanding landscape is the use of walkways. Many homeowners view pathways as simply utilitarian. They fail to recognize their intrinsic beauty. But walkways are more than creating a way from Point A to Point B.
Benefits of Pathways
Walkways offer many unique benefits to a home’s landscape design. Take a look at the following:
They reduce the wear and tear of your yard. The most obvious reason to incorporate a pathway into your landscape design is to protect the areas of your yard with heavy foot traffic. This may include the area between your driveway and front door, or from your back door to a patio in the backyard.
They define a border. A footpath is an easy way to physically and visually define a border. A walkway is a natural choice to include beside a water feature or a heavily planted area of your garden.
They draw people into your garden. Walkways help to draw people into your landscape by physically helping to direct where you want people to walk. A path also visually directs the eyes. People naturally look toward the end of a path and can help to focus visitors’ attention on the focal points of your desert landscape.
A pathway is beautiful. With so many types of walkways to choose from, it is easy to design a beautiful and practical path for your home.
Types of Pathways
Now that you understand the benefits of designing a walkway into your landscape, there are many pathway ideas to get you thinking how you want to paint your landscape.
Pavers:
Pavers are a great choice for creating a garden walkway. There are many types, colors and sizes of pavers available to help you create the correct look for your garden. Homeowners can choose to use pavers to create either a formal or informal look for their walkways. Pavers are a durable solution for creating paths, and are easily replaced if broken. One drawback of using pavers is occasionally weeds can grow between them. Some people think this adds to their charm, but for people who prefer to limit weeds, filling the cracks between pavers with polymeric sand can help control any unwanted growth.
Bricks:
Using bricks as a walkway is very similar to choosing pavers. Bricks are available in a large number of sizes, textures and colors. Homeowners who choose bricks to use for their paths may want to experiment with a few different patterns before deciding on which one to use. Like pavers, people who don’t want weeds to poke through their brick walkway can use polymeric sand. Bricks which become broken are easily replaced.
Stamped Concrete:
Stamped concrete can create beautiful and realistic natural stone or brick walkways quickly. Homeowners may choose an almost unlimited number of designs, using a variety of colors, shapes and textures.. Since stamped concrete pathways completely covers the ground, there is no problem with weeds. It is important to know that if cracks appear, it will require redoing the entire walkway to repair the damage.
Natural Stone:
Many people think using natural stone is the ultimate material for building a path. Natural stone pathways fit in perfectly with any environment, and are extremely durable. They are one of the most expensive options to construct your garden path, but most homeowners agree they are well worth the added expensive. Like pavers and brick paths, weeds can become a problem. Also, because of the weight, and since natural stones are not perfectly flat, they have a tendency to shift over time. Polymeric sand will help keep down the weed and help to steady shifting stones.
Loose Stone:
These paths have the benefit of being among the most inexpensive options for constructing a path – but this does not mean loose stone walkways can’t be beautiful and functional. Homeowners have a choice of many types of stones for these paths. Pea stone is a common choice, but any crushed stone can work. Choosing a colored crushed stone is a great way to to adding interest to a landscape project. The ease of installation and lower cost comes with a few disadvantages. Loose stone paths can easily allow the growth of unwanted plants. Using a landscaping cloth as a base of these paths can help, but is not a guaranteed solution to the problem. Also, as these walkways are made with loose stone, they do not provide the best footing.