Walk this way

Create inviting, meandering paths in your landscape with recyclable materials. Would you believe ... carpet remnants?

By JOHN A. STARNES JR.

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 24, 2001

[Times photos: Ken Helle] STEP BY STEP: Place the carpet upside down on the path, then cover it with mulch to create a walkway. The carpet will keep weeds from growing through the mulch.

Many gardeners are closet tightwads who instinctively reuse items until they fall apart or find new ways to use items that have been discarded by others, such as trellises, clay flower pots and shovels set out on garbage day. We hit the brakes, toss the treasure into our minivans, then scoot off quickly! This form of "precycling" (a polite word for Dumpster diving) can solve many gardening problems and generate new ideas to help you fashion an attractive landscape.

A meandering pathway to lead one around and create a sense of added space and visual drama can enhance a waterwise, grassless landscape of deeply mulched perennials and shrubs. A poured-concrete walk would cost a fortune, as would quality stepping stones, which also pose a tripping hazard.

For years, I have fashioned landscape paths by using carpet remnants with artificial backing (versus natural jute, which will quickly rot). Unroll the carpet upside down on the driveway, and use an old serrated steak knife or bread knife to cut it into strips, using a fast sawing motion. Make each strip about 4 feet wide and as long as you can, and begin laying them fuzzy side down in the landscape, trying different routes till you like the layout.

Curves can be made using shorter pieces with an angled cut at each end. No weed or grass can push up through carpet. Overlap the ends by a foot to ensure a weed-free path. You can lay the carpet right over existing lawn, as the grass beneath it will die. There's no need to dig out heavy chunks of sod.

Once you are certain you like the flow of the path, cover the carpet with 4 inches of your favorite mulch. It will soon settle into a dense, soft walking surface. Rainwater will pass through the carpet and not puddle as it would on plastic. Landscape fabric is too wimpy for this task, whereas carpet was designed to be walked on for many years. The resulting naturalistic path will last a lifetime and cost very little -- nothing if you use recycled tree trimming mulch, a gardening tightwad's dream.

BORDERS: Edging can help to keep the mulch in place and give a defined look.

To delineate and "formalize" the path, you can add edging of some kind to the sides of the carpet path before you apply the mulch. This edging also acts as a "dam" to keep the mulch from spilling off the edges of the carpet. For a woodsy path, sections of natural log or driftwood look great and cost nothing but the pleasurable time spent gathering. I like a high-contrast look and so am using red recycled mulch (not cypress mulch dyed red) and concrete "log" edging sections painted bright white to echo my Victorian arbor and fence.

Many folks would prefer to line the sides of the path with melon-sized pieces of natural Florida limestone but freak out at 30 cents a pound.

Ask for chunks of roughly broken concrete from construction sites. Even better, look for places where old sidewalks are being torn out; the rough undersurface mimics natural stone. To hide that gray concrete color for many years to come, go to the "mistints" section of a paint store and buy an ivory-colored exterior latex paint for a few dollars a gallon.

FINISHED LOOK: Red recycled mulch paves John Starnes’ path. White concrete edging adds contrast.

Lay out a large piece of carpet, upside down, on your driveway, scatter several pieces of concrete on it, then hose them down till very wet. Then use a large old paintbrush or airless sprayer to thickly slather on the paint. The wet surface will make the paint spread quickly into all the tiny crevices, dilute it a bit to avoid a undesirable "painted" look, plus allow the paint to be absorbed into each chunk so as to never flake off. When the concrete pieces are dry, line them up on the outside edges of your carpet pathway, then fill in with mulch. You'll be surprised at how they highlight the path and show off the gardens you've created.

As my own pathway in south Tampa evolves quickly, friends comment that they can see the logic and rapid progress of this method. Since they know how cheap I am, they marvel that I am splurging on the concrete log sections, which average $1 per 18-inch section. The goal is to have more than 100 feet of winding pathways so folks can smell my nearly 200 varieties of own-root roses as they mature over the years.

Using carpet as the starting point for your own pathways will incorporate increasingly respectable "precycling" into your life, save you money and hassle and add an inviting, eye-catching feature into your landscape that will last as long as the home itself.

Just keep your eyes peeled for those carpet remnants (or ask a carpet installer for them), inexpensive latex paint and perhaps a sidewalk being demolished. You save money, and less has to be hauled away to be wasted in a landfill.

John A. Starnes Jr. is an avid gardener and rosarian who studies, collects, cultivates and hybridizes roses for the diverse regions of Florida and Colorado. He can be reached at: THE.GARDEN-DOCTOR@worldnet.att.net

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