S2 



House & Garden'. 



STONE AND THE GARDEN PATH 



Paved Walks and How 

 to Make Them 



THE garden without walks fails in half its 

 mission. It may be beautiful, as a tieki 

 corner thick with wild asters and goldenrod is 

 beautiful^but it is not wholly intimate and 

 inviting. A garden should Ix' more than mere- 

 ly a pretty thing to be admired from outside. 

 You must be able to wander through it easily 

 and without thought of stumliling or treading 

 on tender growing things, if you are to know 

 it at its be.st. It must have ])aths to guide you 

 naturally and without conscious thought. 



Of a variety of paths — gravel, earth, turf 

 and others — let us not speak here. Each 

 has its special place, each its particular 

 advantages. But the path of large stones is so 

 comparatively seldom built, and its good quali- 

 ties relatively so little appreciated, that it calls 

 for more than |)assing attention. 



In the first place, there is practical utilitx'. 

 Paths like tho.se illustrated on these pages are 

 always dry, firm and solid. There is no mud 

 or dust to walk in, no grass to keep eternally 

 cutting, no back-breaking raking, grading or 

 filling to do after the initial work has been 

 completed. 



And there are other more esthetic but no less 

 iraportant features. There is something sane- 

 ly substantial and forthright about the path of 

 large stones. It knows where it is going, and 

 why; it lends an air of pemianency and de- 

 pendability to the whole garden. Tiie age and 

 strength of the rock slabs contrast effectively 

 with the fragile beauty of the flowers. To 

 make the comparison still more marked, low- 

 growing plants like snow-in-summer, speed- 

 well and rock pink may be [ilanted here and 



The paved garden walk 

 lends an air of solid 

 permanence to the whole 

 setting, in contrast to the 

 transient flowers. Olm- 

 sted Brothers, landscape 

 architects 



Regularly shaped slabs 

 arranged in a geometrical 

 manner are sufficiently 

 formal in effect to fit in 

 well with a scheme such 

 as this 



there in the spaces between the stones them- 

 selves. Along the sides, where their taller 

 growth will not interfere with passing feet, 

 ])lants of native wild columbine can lift their 

 coral and gold heads in the May sunshine. 



The actual making of such a path calls for 

 more care than the casual lieholder would 

 suspect. 



First, there is the matter of the foundation. 

 This must be solidly made of well graded and 

 packed earth, perhaps with an underlying layer 

 of broken rocks for drainage if the location is 

 low and tends to wetness. The level of the 

 path, of course, should be raised enough to 

 ])revent surface water from collecting. 



The rock slabs themselves may be of native 

 fieldstone dressed roughly flat on the upper 

 side, or else irregular paving stones of the sort 

 used for ordinary street sidewalks. In either 

 case they should be of varying sizes and 

 shapes, except where an extremely formal ef- 

 fect is desired. Here uniformity of outline is 

 called for. The limits of size vary according 

 to the width of the path and the general scale 

 of the surroundings, but as a general rule 

 none of the slabs should measure less than 1' 

 or more than o' across the longest wav. 



