June, 
19 21 
25 
THE HIGHWAYS AND BY-PATHS OF THE GARDEN 
I N any successful gar¬ 
den each element 
makes its own distinc- 
tivecontribution. There isa 
glory of the perennial bor¬ 
der and a glory of the rock 
garden and a glory of the 
pergola with its vines, and 
a glory of the paths. Each 
requires an individual 
study and treatment in 
order to make the garden 
ensemble a thing of beauty 
and an abiding place of 
peace. A balance must be 
maintained between these 
! various elements so that 
I one does not dominate the 
other to its esthetic hurt, 
i This is especially true of 
paths. 
There should always be 
a reason for a path—it 
should have a definite ob¬ 
jective and the place to 
which it goes and the man¬ 
ner of its course should be 
designed to command the 
greatest possible number 
of desirable garden 
glimpses. If a straight 
path, it will furnish a 
vista and be laid out on an 
axis from the house or a 
point of vantage; if it 
winds, then there must be 
some existing features such 
as great boulders or trees 
or water to give this wind¬ 
ing course a reasonable 
justification. 
Steps, too, should be 
considered a part of the 
path and should continue 
or elaborate the general 
nature of the path. And 
there will be as many dif¬ 
ferent kinds of steps as 
there are kinds of paths. 
The grass path, which is 
When Its Walks Fall in Pleasant Places and Are Engagingly 
Made the Garden Is a Success 
H. R. WILKES 
In many instances the garden steps should be considered as an integral part of the path, 
and share the nature of its construction. Thus a grass path can have grass steps, sup¬ 
ported by risers of stone, the gravel path can have treads of gravel, the brick path, steps 
made entirely of brick and the path of rough hewn stone steps of the same kind of stone. 
It is this uniformity that gives the sense of peace, of quiet and pleasing interest to the 
steps in this garden, 
an ideal treatment for a 
walk between perennial 
beds, will find a natural 
continuation in grass steps 
—the treads of grass and 
the risers of stone support¬ 
ing the treads. In some 
English gardens the all¬ 
grass steps are not uncom¬ 
mon. The stone path, of 
either broken or shaped 
stone, will rise in stone 
steps laid in the same 
manner as the path itself. 
Flowers planted in the 
crevices will give a diver¬ 
sity of color interest. The 
brick path finds logical 
steps in brick, and the 
gravel path can have steps 
of a combination of stone 
risers and gravel tread. 
In a formal garden the 
steps will share the archi¬ 
tectural nature of the gar¬ 
den balustrades, but they 
still will reflect the type of 
the path. 
Before looking into the 
actual construction of gar¬ 
den paths, let us list the 
flowers that can be grown 
in the crevices between 
stone walks or in the shel¬ 
tered corners of garden 
steps. We have seen gar¬ 
dens where a Gypsophila 
flore pleno filled the corner 
of a wide tread with the 
cloudy masses of its bloom 
and another where Gyp¬ 
sophila repens was so thick 
as to make steeping there 
almost as difficult as hop- 
ski p-and-jump. For the 
full sun one may plant the 
crevices and comers of 
the stone path and its steps 
with the following: 
Gold Dust (Alyssum 
