Garden path Archives - Wendy Dixon Fog

With all the winter storms and downed branches my yard is looking pretty chaotic. It originally looked like a war zone until we revved up the chain saws and stacked the wood, gleefully using it for most of the winter to heat our house and ignoring the rest of the mess. Now that spring is here those larger logs and errant branches that seemed impossible to deal with are taunting me. Light bulb! This isn’t debris, it is art material.

There is a treasure trove of material to use in some sort of creative way. Make it fun. Turn those large rounds on end and use them as stools and tables for kids. Decorate them with paint, tiles, fabric or whatever you and your kids dream up. Or cut them up and create stepping stones…the possibilities are endless. Take those long straight branches and have your kids create totem poles. They can have any theme and use any materials. Use them as garden ornaments or back drops for a child’s play area. Or construct tepees and forts, hidden spaces for kids games. Now when you ask your kids to help you clean up the yard, they may just jump at the chance.

: Glow in the dark stools

: Tea party

: Creative stepping stones

: Artist in the Zone

: Imaginative Totem Poles

: Mosaic Table Top

: Decorative Table Tops

: Colored Stepping Stones

: Decorative Pathway

Good landscape design is not just about plants. What makes a garden beautiful and memorable is a sense of mystery. Nothing does that better than a meandering path. It hints at the unknown, luring you forward and creating an atmosphere of serenity and reflection. You’ve done it yourself; walked a lawn or meadow and you see a path, around a tree or through an arch, gently curving away from you. Suddenly,without thinking, you find yourself taking the path with an irresistible impulse to see where it goes. Paths are for wandering and contemplating, sauntering really. This is when you notice a small fern popping through the under story, or an errant rose having migrated to a new spot.

There is no end to the imagination in creating a path; shells, stones, grass, flagstone, ceramics, wood chips..the list is vast. They can be whimsical and fanciful, functional and handy, elegant and stylish, small or grand. They can end at a beach, a garden sculpture, a bench or a water feature. Or they can end up back from where you started. The curves should be gentle and undulating with plant material sited to hide what is just around the corner. Formal gardens rely on symmetry and straighter lines. But for me, I like to take a hint from Mother Nature. There are no straight lines in the natural world.

There is a certain poetry to a path and one should be incorporated into every garden, regardless of size..