I don’t know about you, but we have been especially looking forward to spring this year. When stay-at-home orders hit last year, the hubs and I, plus our two dogs, were in a 900sqft condo downtown and our 3×6′ astroturf-laden patio (which is a great idea for a condo patio, by the way!) just wasn’t cutting it. Now that March is here and the frosty mornings seem to be (knock on wood) behind us, we are in full swing getting ready to welcome our first spring in the new home! We’ve even enjoyed a few warm days working outside and a couple evenings grilling on the patio this last week.
But today, I’m excited to share our first spring garden project! We planted our seedlings back in February and they’re happily growing away, getting ready for us to plant them in the garden later this month, and in preparation for all our trips from kitchen to garden and back, we decided to build a stone garden bath through the grass.
Disclaimer: We were able to make the ultimately budget project because we had all the materials on hand, but you can purchase similar materials from your local box store and still make this a budget-friendly project without having to hire a landscaper – even if you’re working with a small slope like we were.
Budget: $0!
Materials:
- 1/4″ pea gravel
- Decorative river rocks
- Large flat pavers (for steps)
- Shovel(s)
- Rake
- Garden shears (if you’ll be contending with roots)
About 3 hours with 2 people.
First, we collected our pavers and laid them down on the grass to outline where our path would be, ensure the distance between our steps would be comfortable for walking, and make sure we liked the pavers we chose. We decided to use larger pavers and actually nixed a few of the smaller ones we put in our initial path because they’re easier to walk on and seemed more stable. We got lucky, because there are a ton of river rocks that range from about 1/4″ to 3″ and pavers all around our house so we ‘reallocated’ some of our garden rock resources for our path. To collected the pavers, I selected the largest ones I could find that would make good steps, loaded them into a wheelbarrow, and brought them over to the garden. Our path is around 30′ and it took 17 pavers (which was just two wheelbarrows full).
Then we started digging! We moved our pavers off to the side, then used a flat shovel to mark out boundaries of the path, roughly equal to the width of the largest paver, and dug about 3″ down to create a small trench. If possible, I definitely recommend two people and shovels for this portion! It will make your project go a lot faster.
Because our garden is fairly close to a cluster of three trees that you can see in the picture below, we did hit a number of roots. When this happened, we used garden shears to cut through the roots so we could dig the whole trench to the same depth and get our stones as even as possible.
After the hard work of getting the trench dug, which was definitely the most labor-intensive part of this project, we loaded the tractor bucket up with a few loads of river rock from around the property, dumped them into the trench, and started raking downhill to even the stones out in the trench. As best as we could, we tried to keep the smaller stones (~1/4″) on the bottom of trench and the larger river rocks on top. Using the rake to pull the larger stones down worked pretty well, because the smaller ones weren’t caught in the rake tines, but if I were to do this again I would definitely separate out our rock loads into small gravel first, then lay the pavers down, and last put the larger, decorative river rocks around the pavers. Live and learn!
After getting the smaller stones laid down, we started adding the pavers on top. As each one was placed, we moved any larger rocks out of the way so they were primarily laying on top of the smaller gravel, which was more stable. Since we were working on a slope, we also dug down at the back of each step (i.e. the side on the uphill slope side) to make sure each step would be level. In some cases we also added a brick under the front (i.e. the side on the downhill slope side) of the pavers where we needed some extra support underneath on the downhill side.
And that was that! It was a great half-day weekend project and we’re excited to have a nice path going from the house to our garden. I’ll be especially happy for when it’s muddy and I no longer have to schlep through the mud on my way to the compost pile (which is right behind the garden).
I’ll update after a few months to let you know how it’s holding up. We also may add some additional decorations or clean it up a bit more with more stones from around the yard. We’re so happy with our new pathway!
What spring projects are you looking forward to this year? Let me know in the comments below!