Garden Update – Moving a Path

I have not been posting much this month because I’ve been spending a lot of my time outside in the garden. I love it so much!

As Spring kicked into high gear, I started looking at the garden for areas that need attention. One area that I knew I needed to address was this little path that goes from the back yard, past the raised vegetable bed, to the compost bin. Here’s how the path looked late last July/ early August during inspection.

Path Before – inspection day

By the time we moved in late September, even more of the path was obstructed from Grapevine and the hydrangeas. Yet, there was still plenty of space on the other side, but just a bunch of slate stones just sitting there.

Overgrown Path

Nothing was even close to level, and as the fall turned into winter, I noticed more difficulty in taking this path. It felt slippery, lopsided, uneven, and a little dangerous. In this next shot, you can really see how uneven the stones were too.

Path Before Late March

So this Spring, I decided to move the stones as best I could, without making a huge to-do about it.

Path Before

Path After stones moved

I didn’t want to over think it, and I had no money to spend, so I just did very little to move each stone. All told the project probably took me about 3-4 hours over 3-4 days. I picked up each piece of slate, Figured out where I wanted it, and dug the area I wanted to place it. I tried to make it more level, but with still just a little lean for water to run off. I used a larger shovel to start, and then used a hand trowel to make the area smooth and as level as I wanted it. I then placed the step and made sure it felt somewhat secure, and then pushed up the extra dirt and stones around it.

Path After towards house

You can see some areas are lighter colored- and that’s where there was more gravel. I think originally it was probably more of a gravel path, and then over time they decided to move slate here. The soil is rich and organic, and I came across many worms, termites, and other critters living in the dirt. This picture was taken in early May, when the azaleas were going wild.

Path Looking Towards House

A couple weeks later, I bought some Iris Moss (Sangina) to plant in between the stones. I wanted something to grow to give the stones a little more stability, but I also love the look. I do think I’ll need to get some more scotch moss – I got one 6″ pot and divided it up and planted it in 5 different spots. But I think if I want it to fill in faster, I’ll probably need to get some more.

Irish Moss in Path

I’d love to have more moss growing back here, and maybe some other kind of in between stone filler – like sedum or creeping jenny (moneywort). I have both of these growing in the veggie bed, and I did try to transplant some creeping jenny. I don’t know for sure that I want it down there though (it kinda wants to take over the ground). And I don’t know how well these do in a lot of shade.

Creeping Jenny and Sedum

In this picture from last year, you can see a bunch of moss growing (under the gorgeous hydrangea), but I think a lot of it died over the winter. I tried digging up some of it and transplanting it when I relaid the stones.

Path Before – moss growing

And here’s the scotch moss today, still alive! Maybe it has even grown a little… but you can also see that there are lots of little weeds… which is why I’d love to have scotch moss over the entire thing.

Iris Moss still alive

And here’s the path today, late May. Those are roses growing up a trellis in the back, to the right.

Path Late May

My goal for the garden paths are to be functional and pretty as much as possible. If there’s any way to lessen the overall maintenance as well, I will try!

Linking up to these parties:  Remodelaholic; Nifty Thrifty Things, Thrifty Decor Chick