As a landscape designer, one of my favorite topics of garden design and construction is the garden path!
A well thought out and lovingly created garden path makes a garden come alive. It guides us to experience the magic and beauty of a garden fully.
I made this collection of some of my favorite DIY friendly and gorgeous garden path ideas, and a list of helpful resources / books: ( Some of the helpful resources are affiliate links. Full disclosure here. )
If you want to dive in, here are a few of my favorite books with lots of great details on garden path construction!
- The Complete Pebble Mosaic Handbook: I just LOVE this book. So many amazing patterns and close-up instruction photos!
- Garden Paths: Inspiring Designs and Practical Projects: lots of construction detail drawings of all kinds of garden paths
- Sunset Western Garden Book Of Landscaping: gorgeous photos for inspirations, and detailed photos for DIY
1 – 3. Easy DIY garden paths
The first group of garden path ideas, are loose materials: Wood chips, gravel or decomposed granite.
Pros: Wood Chips, gravel and stepping stones ( perfect for those who loves to walk bare feet! ) are great beginner-friendly materials for DIY garden paths. They are the easiest to handle and least expensive material. They are soft underfoot, but solid enough to handle heavy foot traffic or a loaded wheelbarrow. A border can enhance the looks of these pathways grealy
Cons: They need to be top-dressed every 1-3 years. If you need to shovel snow often, gravel is not the best choice. Not suitable for steep slopes. ( Source: 1-lost | Brinitzer | Bliss Garden Design )
4 & 5. Gravel Garden Path Variations
Flexible metal or stone edging (can be easily made from local rocks) gives a nice definition to this garden path, and keeps the gravel in place.
Fine gravel path with concrete pavers or natural stone landing areas create interesting texture and details. Gray colored gravel also looks great in a Japanese style garden! ( Source: Bliss Garden Design )
6 -8. Natural-looking Garden Path
Materials such as broken concrete or small (1″+- ) river rocks are very cost effective.
Compacted decomposed granite ( aka DG, basically super fine gravel, looks and feels like fine sand with smaller than ¼” particles) is really comfortable to walk on. It’s used a lot in Mediterranean and Southwestern style gardens. (Source: Sisson Landscapes | Karl Gercens | Swicks )
9 – 10. Pebbles and Slate Chips Garden Path
Such a poetic design: the pebbles here are a metaphor for streams and rivers, and the little wooden bridge is stunning. Love the deep blue color of the slate! ( Source: RKL Design | Katherine Roper )
11 – 16. Pavers and Grass Garden Path
A grassy area is beautiful. It is not suitable for heavy traffic such as loaded wheel barrels. By adding attractive pavers such as brick, slate, or concrete stepping stones, you can have both beauty and functionality!
( Source: Family Handyman | Indulgy )
( Source: A Blade of Grass | Family Handyman )
17. Stepping stones and grass.
18. Cobblestone garden path
One of my favorite garden path designs is old cobble stones. It’s used a lot in traditional European gardens, and the rustic vibe is irresistible.
19, & 20. Variations of broken concrete garden path
Broken up concrete is a great material for creating garden paths. Here the pieces look very much like natural stone.
A variation of up-cycled broken concrete path with gravel filled in between the stepping “stones”.
21 & 22. Wood garden paths
The wood plank path and recycled railroad ties path require more skill in carpentry and construction. Important: wood can get slippery, especially after a rain or in shade. Always add an anti-slip coating on wood paths in shade or in rainy climate. ( Source: Garden Design Co | Tumblr )
23 – 25. Creative and playful garden paths
The wood slice path is perfect for an enchanted woodland garden. ( Source: PendletonDM )
The recycled bottle path and edging looks beautiful as the glass bottles reflect the sun light! (Source lost. Please let me know if you find it.)
The last example is from a book I love: The Complete Pebble Mosaic Handbook. Isn’t it inspiring?
For more great garden ideas, check out these magical living structures you can create!
And 30+ pallet furniture and projects for the outdoors!
Happy creating!!
Bethany
I’m working on a pebble path in our backyard that I’m in love with. Best part is it’s free since all the land around here used to be a riverbed.
Sayantini
We don’t have enough space in our garden to try out all these beautiful ideas but I can definitely incorporate some of the features there. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Maya
This is not helping my spring fever! I want to get outside and garden so bad… but I live in Canada… so I have some time to wait!
Melissa
So pretty! Great ideas.
Cara
These are some great ideas! I love the river rock pathway, so pretty!
Nancy B Colleran
rounded river rock is horrid for paths. We had that when we moved to this home. I continually turned my ankles, it was impossible to roll a wheelbarrow on, and was always unsteady. We replaced the river rock with 1/4″ gravel. It compacts, and becomes flattened and is still porous so water will penetrate. River rock is pretty but not very functional.
ananda
thank you nancy for sharing this helpful tip! i agree! there are also small 1/4″ to 1/2″ small pea gravel that have the look of river rocks but are better for paths! =)
ofer
You showed us that Garden path is not just a large element in the garden but can be one of most interesting and beautiful. So many great images of garden path and garden edgings to inspire. That is a great post
in the grassy path garden you can see that they are just about to install garden edging to stop the grass growing to the raised beds.
Logan
I love the gravel with the stones and the brick pavers! These are so gorgeous!
Betsy
I love the one with the little bridge. Ever since I saw a bridge like that in Skymall I wanted one for my back yard haha. Love all those ideas.
Nadine
I love the little bridge too. I was hoping somewhere in this posting it would lead us to the site for building the bridge.
ananda
hi nadine! i will build a bridge next year when we move into our new home, and link the tutorial to it! =)
Emily @ Recipes to Nourish
These are so beautiful! I love seeing photos like this, it reminds me of my mom who was a landscape {and interior} designer. Such lovely ideas.
Anna Prokofieva
So inspiring! Still don’t know what am I gonna do with our back yard, but the pictures from your post are definitely thought-provoking))) Thanks for a great post!
Brittany
Ahh these are so beautiful!
Eloise
Great post, lots of ideas to make a walking path beautiful… A couple years ago I added a walking path in our yard and used round stepping stones with wood chips to surround them. I received so many compliments on my work, and love coming home to such a beautiful garden and path.
I also like the old English ‘bumpy’ path, you’re right it has a lot of character(which I love)
Jenn
These were all so great! Great list. It was hard for me to have a favorite but I think I like the glass bottle walk way the most. It is the most creative I think of all of them but each one was beautiful! Thank you for sharing, now I want to buy some land and put all of those paths on it! lol
Mimi Rose
I loved looking through these gardens, they look so tranquil and beautiful. A perfect place to go read, be alone with your thoughts, or meditate. Before they sold their old house, my parents had a zen-like garden in their backyard with a mediation maze and everything. Gardens are the best!
Clare
Oh my goodness – I just love greenery and gardens and we don’t do so well with growing flowers and gardens … but this gives us many of ideas – such beauty in all of them I can’t decide which is my favorite! Thanks for sharing these – I really truly love them all!
Heather
Oh those are beautiful! I wish I could grow a garden that beautiful.
Angie
I love all of these! I have to figure out what to do with my backyard. In the listing photos when I bought my house it was lush and green (it’s also huge, like my lot is big for being right in the city anyway, and my house is so tiny it takes up so little of it) but they killed it before I moved in. So it’s just a giant lot of dead grass and weeds at the moment.
I’ll definitely be putting in a vegetable garden, but I’m thinking a nice path and stuff to cut down on the areas I need to replant grass.
Rebecca
These paths are all so beautiful! I would love to have the pebbles with stepping stones in my own garden! 🙂
Jia
Wow, these gardens and photography are stunning! One day when I live in a house and not an apartment, I will have to try creating something similar!
LZ Cathcart@ The Summery Umbrella
Oh wow! I do believe I would take any one of these beauties in my yard! Maybe even… three or more. 😉
mua
wow!!! very beautifull!… i like this ideas
Carole
All are stunning! Well picked! I am going to go with wood chip path with gum saplings laid down to denote the edges, then edged by clumps of Blue Fescue Grass. Then I am going to add some tree offcuts – sliced rounds of trunk or limb to make steppers across Mainly because it looks natural and we live in the mountains in beautiful gum forest area but also because the materials I am using are completely free! Lots of tree work going on in our area at present! Around that is a soft fall woodchip mulched area newly planted with Australian Native plants. Kangaroo Paw, Australian Woolly Bush, Westringia, Salvia, Acacia Cognata, Weeping Tea Tree, assorted Grevillia both upright and prostrate forms. Should look good when it grows in. I will have to post photos in a year or two!
ananda
that sounds beautiful carole! i LOVE grevillia moonshine! happy planting and come back to share photos here or on my facebook page!
thomson
So beautiful! It takes more time, effort and expense than others. While gravel is inexpensive, mosaics have a good design, look elegant, but it is a time consuming process.
Iiya Ksissa
Thanks so much for this post. I was getting overwhelmed with choices but this list is simple. I crossed off what wasn’t available here, too expensive etc. Now all I have to do is get out and start work!
ananda
wish you a beautiful garden Liya!! =)
Dawn Moore
I was so delighted to see my work as part of your beautifully curated story! Yes, broken concrete is a fav of mine and A) you’re recycling – always a good thing, and B) it’s inexpensive. The project in the image is actually a TINY side garden, so for those of you who think you have to “wait” to have space… look a little harder; you probably already have it!
Thanks again for including me in this inspiring post!
ananda
hi dawn! your project is GORGEOUS! thank you for inspiring! =)
Jorge McMillan
Wow, I had no idea that well thought out paths like these could make a garden really come to life. Like you point out at the start of the article, they lead us to really gain the full experience of enjoying the garden. I’m new to all of this, so after reading this article, I’m going to really make sure that I take time of choosing the right path for my garden.
Nancy G
Thanks so much for this post. I was getting overwhelmed with choices but this list is simple. I crossed off what wasn’t available here, too expensive etc. Now all I have to do is get out and start work!
Alex
Wow, I had no idea that well thought out paths like these could make a garden really come to life. Thanks !
Daphne Gilpin
Thanks for mentioning that we should add anti-slip coating to railroad ties so they don’t get slippery when wet. My husband and I just moved to a new home and want to put a path in the back yard leading to the garden. I really love the look of reclaimed railroad ties, so thanks for sharing the safety tip about anti-slip coating!