Garden paths, layout and basic rules for their arrangement

Paths in a summer cottage have an important role in life outside the city, thanks to well-made paths in the rain, water does not accumulate on them, and in winter they are easy to clear of snow ...

Perhaps you are a beginner builder and gardener, and in your suburban area there is only a small garden and a small garden house at the head.

Or maybe you have been farming for a long time, and your site has historically been formed with its buildings, paths, recreation areas and other secluded corners of your garden space.

You ask, where is all this, because it was about garden paths? Everything is very simple and not simple at the same time.

Site layout

An already formed site does not require any additional planning during the construction of tracks. In this case, the tracks are laid from point A to point B (from the shed to the house, from the house to the toilet) and here everything is clear.

But if you have not yet decided on the layout of your site, and you don’t really want to move on wet grass, or even muddy mud, you need to think about what maybe you need, arrange temporary tracks, tracks that are easy to dismantle in the future and move to another place.

But “No, there’s something more permanent than temporary,” and here we have to make the right decision in choosing the material and technology for the construction of garden paths.

Based on these considerations, it is necessary to carefully plan and weigh everything in order to understand where the temporary paths that have virtually no foundation will go, and where you plan to do, are more fundamental, have a good base under themselves, capable of carrying a large daily load .

Width and load

The width of the track is also an important factor in planning. If you plan to equip the main track with high intensity of use, you need to consider the width, two people walking in different directions should freely diverge without colliding and without interfering with each other.

For such a track, the desired width is not less than 1-1.2 meters. When arranging the tracks, it is very important to take into account the possible load on the latter, the specifics of the soil on which they will be located, as well as the level of groundwater.

Rules for arranging tracks

There are a number of basic rules, the neglect of which is undesirable when arranging garden paths.

•     Drainage (base) - backfill with sand or sand with gravel, a thickness of at least 10 cm. Used on loose soil. On poorly water-absorbing soil, it is necessary to add crushed stone of the order of 15cm. Thanks to the drainage bedding, your road surface will lie on a hard foundation, and during frosts, the road surface will not lift (swell) with frozen, saturated soil.
  
  
•     Slope - all tracks must be done with a slope, either in one direction, or with a hump on both sides. This also applies to steps and platforms, the slope is 1 cm per meter of track.
  
  
•     Load - the greater the load (intensity of use) is planned for the track, the thicker should be the backing of its base with sand and gravel
  
  
•     Groundwater - If you have water standing and not leaving debt in the spring after snow melting or after heavy rains, this indicates a high level of groundwater.
  
  Accordingly, this must be taken into account when arranging garden paths. If your path will lie in a level with the surface of the earth, or even worse below its level, then your paths will be filled with water all the time.

There are two ways out, the first is the easiest option:

1. we make a bed of sand and gravel above ground level
   
   
2. the second option may be relevant in the presence of a street ditch or a special reservoir for the discharge of rainwater

Let's look at the possibility of dumping surface water by laying a drain. Along the edge, from the side where the slope of your path leads, a perforated drainage pipe is laid, the pipe runs along the entire length of the garden path, and reaches the gutter or rain well. After certain distances, in the track can be located afterblowers.

It is advisable to lay the drain pipe with a slope of 1 cm per meter to the drain pipe. With such drainage along the paths, water will not accumulate as the water will be discharged through a pipe into a ditch or artificial pond.

How to make a path if peat is underfoot

I would like to focus on the improvement of paths in areas with peat. The fact is that peat is a very insidious soil, it has the ability to sag and expand depending on the degree of wetting and freezing.

Ideally, peat is selected all the way to hard ground! But if it’s not 20-30 cm under your feet, but 50 cm or more, such work becomes not only labor-intensive, but also expensive.

Therefore, for pedestrian use, at their own peril and risk, some do this: to create the base of the path, peat 30 to 40 cm deep is selected, any width of the path is made.

Next, a geotextile for paving is laid on the peaty area, on top of which a mixture of sand and gravel is poured, if there is no gravel, then sand can be used, sandy loam is not desirable, all this is spilled with water and carefully rammed.

The main thing is that the upper level of the path is higher than the neighboring peat level, then the water will always drain from the path.

A drain pipe is laid parallel to the track, and the slope of the track is made towards the pipe.

Further, on such a foundation, the coating itself can be laid, for example paving slabs or cast in place using a plastic mold, another layer of geotextile can be laid on which a layer of crushed stone is laid (about 10 cm).

Then, even in the most severe rain, your path will always remain dry, and wet sand will not stick to your feet, from which there is always a lot of trouble in the house.

But you always need to remember that peat sags over time, and the track may be deformed, in connection with it it will be necessary to partially or completely repair it.

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