Topic: Ideas for paths please!

[Lottie3]

I have beds edged with old pallets from a garden centre broken down and my paths are black plastic - all sorts and covered with bark chips but now being replaced with conifer type - would you call them leaves? pine needles - as they break down much more slowly than bark it seems.

Good luck and happy scavenging.

Lottie 3

[chriszog]

Pics of the path at www.chriszog.smugmug.com
If you want a look
Regards
Chris

[Chrissie]

Lovely neat paths Chris - I'm greatly inspired.

I'm GREEN with envy to see you have a shed too - how wonderful. I know they're supposed to be the indispensible social hub of an allotment but we're not allowed anything permanent over three feet high on ours - for aesthetic reasons I think. Daft because loose tools etc lying around look far messier. It's a pain  :'(.

Great idea to keep a photo record of your progress - will follow it with interest!

[Derek]

All of my paths are slabbed..  its taken me three years of scrounging for freebies plus buying a few cheap out of the paper...50p each

A neighbour recently gave up and asked if I wanted some slabs 3' x 2' that edged his dahlia beds and they were sufficient to completely do the path between my two half plots
At least I don't keep falling off the slippy uneven grass path that was there before.
Another bonus of dividing the plot for me is the fact that each bed can be dug in an hour and I have that sense of achievment that it is 'complete'

Derek

[Icyberjunkie]

My paths are just black plastic from old fertiliser bags - or rather were because I have just dug the all up having got rid of a raspberry bed and claimed a second plot! 

If you do line the underside of your paths with plastic leave them a little loose and as you lay each sheet use a spade to push the sides and ends into the soil - it will hold them firm preventing the wind or foot traffic lifting them up.

Its also worth laying them double for any split and you will find all sorts of weeds pushing up!   On that point thety are not great next to raspberry or bramble hedges for the sucker push there way through!

Iain

[Chrissie]

OK I know - indispensAble. Oops.

When I think of the stuff we got rid of when we cleared out our new garden a couple of years ago I could cry... bricks, slabs, lumps of wood, breeze blocks - we had nowhere to keep them then and I hadn't been bitten by the lottie bug!

Good luck with the second plot Iain.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I'm making mine out of bricks which I salvage from the stream at the bottom. At this rate it's going to take me years.

[timmyc]

some places also to a recycled tyre mulch - it has the advantage over bark in that it won't dissapear - though that might also be a disadvantage - depending on whether you are ever going to move your paths - if you are at least bark will compost away if you dig it in! Rubber bits on the other hand will remain a path for 30 years or more - unlike bark which will need replacing every couple of years - rubber also comes in a number of "attractive" colours - not sure I'd want to use it though as it's not a natural product

[busy_lizzie]

We too have gone the way of wooden edged beds, with the paths lined with weed suppressent fabric and bark placed over the tops, and  they are really neat.  I have just re-barked ours thanks to the freebie load from our council.  busy_lizzie

[Chrissie]

Rubber tyre mulch sounds interesting but a bit unnatural as you say Timmyc. Would be very hardwearing though. Isn't that the stuff they use on children's playgrounds?

I'm spoilt for choice now with ideas. I'll bet brick paths look lovely but it would be difficult to collect enough. Bark seems to be the way to go.

Now I need to chat up my local council!