12 garden paths for different landscape styles

Recreation area decoration

There may be several options, depending on the personal preferences of the owners of the site:

You can create a beautiful recreation area with your own hands by laying out a stone or brick barbecue area. In the middle, you can build a bonfire from any refractory materials.

Around you need to arrange wooden chairs, which can be made from pallets. Textile pillows add coziness to the relaxation area.

Another option is a gazebo with a roof, possibly with a kitchen area. A soft sofa area is needed in the gazebo. Sofas can be made from the same pallets or leftover building materials. You can see the options for such furniture below.

For those who like to sleep in the fresh air, the option with a hammock suspended between trees in the shade is suitable. Do not forget to put a small table nearby so that you can put a book or phone there, put a cup of tea.

Large adult swings can also be made in this area. They can be made from pallets or other lumber residues.

Unusual and original design of garden paths

Considering the design options for the dacha and the garden, you can see that the owners of the dachas pay special attention to garden paths that allow you to move freely throughout the site and are decorated with all kinds of decor.

For the arrangement of garden paths, a large number of materials are used, natural and artificial stone, brick and paving slabs, natural wood and hemp cuts, pebbles and even plastic bottle caps.

Garden paths with a well-chosen lighting system look original, flower beds with flowers or greenery next to them can be illuminated with additional, ground lamps, and decorated with practical benches.

Geometric patterns allow you to decorate the paths, which are decorated with unusual borders made of all kinds of materials, which allows you to complement and harmonize the general idea of ​​arranging landscape design at a summer cottage.

Support for plants

Creating perspective is a technique that is used not only in design, but also in photography and painting. The planning of a small area is impossible without the correct construction of the perspective.

The main thing to remember when planting plants is not to discover all the beauty of the garden at once. Organize the space so that the area begins to be seen gradually.

Arches and supports for plants will help to add volume to the garden. Give preference to vertical lines, they will create even shadows. Use the division of the territory into separate parts, for this low hedges are suitable.

Lattices for plants will make it possible to create an illusion, and the space will begin to seem voluminous.

Where to begin

Before developing a document defining the further course of work on improving the site - a landscape plan, it is worth clearly defining the intended use of the territory. The needs of the family can be varied, the range of main points from which the landscape design of the personal plot begins to be built has long been outlined:

• The territory is used all year round or seasonally;
• How many people are constantly on the site, will it be used for large-scale events;
• Do you plan to engage in gardening, planting vegetables;
• Is there a possibility of walking pets, open-air cages for outdoor keeping;
• The architectural style of the house is taken into account;
• Will an artificial reservoir be designed?

This is an incomplete list of preliminary questions for agreement, there can be dozens of such nuances.

According to their capabilities

A popular material for garden paths is clinker (road brick). Although according to the manufacturing method, it is a ceramic tile, which is distinguished by high mechanical strength, wear resistance and resistance to sudden temperature changes and aggressive environmental influences.

Increasingly, in the design of garden paths, porcelain stoneware is used, which is distinguished by its exceptional strength and resistance to a wide variety of influences - mechanical, temperature, chemical.

To create paths from natural stone, it is better to use hard rocks of volcanic origin such as basalt, granite, sandstone.

Tiles for garden paths can also be made of concrete, flat polished stone, ceramic with a glazed surface, characterized by durability and resistance to weathering.

Site zoning

The division of the personal plot into parts bearing a separate functional purpose is advisable from the point of view of effective use of the area. The functional areas are the same for most areas. In the front part of the site there is a front entrance area, in plain sight there is a place for a recreation area. The dacha is characterized by the allocation of space for the beds, the fruit-bearing trees are the garden zone, they hide the economic zone from prying eyes. The presence of children involves the creation of a play area.

Parade zone

The entrance or front area of ​​the site is located on a small area - about 6% of the entire territory, its functionality is small: to provide a comfortable arrival of transport, the entrance to the site. But this is the first thing that your guests will see

The most important thing that should be paid attention to is the arrangement of a comfortable approach to the house, a convenient parking place for the car. The passage to the residential building is wide - about two meters

Avoid planting trees around the parking area, as this can damage the vehicle.

It makes no sense to decorate the area with a lawn, high permeability will turn it into unattractive clumps of grass. It is better to stop at tiled, brick paving, concrete pouring. There may not be enough space for decorative elements in this area; they are, if necessary, placed along the line of the outer fence. From the outside of the site, in the presence of a strip of full soil, you can plant a hedge, decorate the entrance to the house with flowering annuals. The planting of decorative grapes, climbing varieties of roses helps to hide the sharp line of the fence.

Rest area and barbecue

The recreation area occupies a slightly larger area, about 15% of the entire site. They arrange it, taking into account the possibility of cooking in outdoor conditions, it is possible to arrange a summer kitchen, a place for receiving guests. A stationary, mobile barbecue, grill, barbecue is also installed here. It is possible to lay out an outdoor stove from refractory bricks. If the area permits, they equip all kinds of gazebos, places for relaxation, rest for guests. For a comfortable time in the recreation area, the following points are taken into account when improving it:

The zone is located away from prying eyes, it is advisable to place it behind a residential building

This will ensure a comfortable stay.
For the convenience of serving the members of the guests, part of the zone should be located in the immediate vicinity of the residential building.
It is important that the recreation area offers a view of decorative plantings, reservoirs, the territory of the playground.

Gardening zone

The largest number of acres of land allotment, about 2/3 of the plot, is allocated for the improvement of the garden zone. The orchard should be lit, but for tall trees with a large branchy crown, the northern part is more suitable.It is better to fence off the garden from the recreation area, home ownership by a number of fruit trees, dwarf apple and cherry trees do an excellent job with this role, they bloom add picturesqueness to the entire garden. For convenience, the garden is divided into several separate beds using paved paths, so it is more convenient to care for the seedlings. A drip irrigation system is supplied under the modular beds. You can outline vegetable plantings from a hedge formed from fruit-bearing shrubs: gooseberries, currants.

Economic zone

The economic zone of the country house is located in the immediate vicinity of the vegetable garden, includes a room for storing household equipment, workshops, utility rooms. If the area permits, a major garage is immediately erected. The undoubted advantage will be the presence of a bath or sauna at the dacha. In this case, the steam room should have direct access paths to the house. If the country house is small, does not have internal amenities, then an outdoor toilet and an outdoor shower are placed in the utility area. Economic structures should not spoil the overall aesthetics, therefore, in small areas they are hidden with the help of climbing ornamental plants; in a large area, it is possible to use more massive internal fences.

Game Zone

The playground does not have to be impressive in size; about 10 square meters will be enough to comfortably accommodate two or three children. meters. A small sandbox, a swing, and a simple sports and game equipment can fit into this area with success. The coverage of the area is designed to be exceptionally soft to avoid injury during outdoor games.

The play area is split up in a dry, sunny location. Shaded areas must be equipped to hide from the heat.

Flower beds and flower beds

The most traditional element of landscape design is a variety of flower beds and flower beds.

Solid structures with stone fencing require a foundation, and the simplest ideas can be implemented with minimal effort.

Depending on the plants planted in the flowerbed and the scheme of their arrangement, there are:

• carpet beds (with dense planting of flowers),
• regular (where planted according to the pattern of plants that bloom for a certain period of time),
• mono-flower beds (one type of plant),
• irregular (with flowers blooming all season).

Vertical and raised flower beds look unusual. With their help, you can visually divide the site into zones.

Preparation for arrangement

Before you start to do something with your land and make plans, you need to consider the territory and get to know it better.

You need to pay attention to some details:

The relief of the site, the presence of irregularities and hills on it. The reliefs do not have to be leveled, as unusual design decisions can be made from them. You can make stone paths along the hills, and create a pond in the lowlands.

The location of the cardinal points. The amount of light and protection from the winds depends on this. So all heat-loving plants are best planted on the south side.

Vegetation, tall trees, or bushes. A tall and wide tree on the site can be taken as the center of the composition. In hot weather, they protect well from the sun and retain moisture, so a table or a gazebo can be made under the tree.

Water level. It affects the growth quality of some plants. Therefore, if any flowers or shrubs do not grow, the soil may not be suitable for them. To make sure your gardens don't deteriorate, it's worth checking the water table.

Arrangement of the site takes a lot of time, you need to be ready for this. Plants constantly require watering, land - plowing, bushes must be cut off. Therefore, housekeeping will last a lifetime.

Children playground

You can also set up a real playground in the backyard. The main elements on it will be:

• Closed sandbox.
• Slides with stairs.
• Swing.
• Decorative figurines.

Before installing the playground, it is imperative to prepare the ground: remove debris, fragments (safety for children). Next, you need to think about a durable and elastic coating for the site.

This location of the site has many advantages:

• Children are always supervised and away from highways.
• A utility room with tools for cleaning sand, cleaning the territory and caring for plants can be located near the site.

You can design the backyard in this style in the conditions of the non-standard shape of the site.

Style selection

A beautiful site design can be created in any case, regardless of style. But if you choose a certain direction, then the site will look harmonious.

Before choosing a style, it is worth looking at examples of the design of plots of country houses.

The English style is an evenly mown lawn, a clean garden with a fountain, various sculptures and lighting, a house of bright light and decorative paths.

Mediterranean style is an abundance of stone, a variety of plants and wood. In order for the site to look beautiful all year round, it is worth planting conifers.

The rustic style is very simple, the most important thing in it is naturalness and simplicity.

Plastic bottle coating

Plastic garden paths have many advantages:

• They are not afraid of moisture and temperature extremes.
• They do not require special material costs.
• Such a coating is easy to make yourself.
• Plastic is the basis for long service life.

Step-by-step instructions for work:

• It is necessary to dig a trench slightly deeper than the height of the bottles.
• After leveling the walls, a sand pillow is laid on the bottom.
• The bottles are filled with soil, sand or fine gravel.
• The elements of the coating are placed vertically in the trench, trying to install them close to each other and with their necks down.
• The free space is filled with a mixture of cement and sand.

The bottoms of the bottles can, if desired, be painted in different colors, making out a garden path in an interesting design. The use of bottles also allows you to choose the shape for your garden path.

Plastic modules

The use of plastic modules in laying a garden path is a new technology that has won thousands of fans all over the world. Plastic - the material is quite lightweight, cheap, durable and strong. The pluses include the fact that plastic modules can be dismantled at any time. They are not exposed to negative environmental influences and do not enter into chemical reactions. It is in this case that you can choose any option, because there is a huge amount of plastic of various shapes and colors on the market. The tile includes the backing and the exterior. The underlay is designed to ventilate the air and drain excess moisture. Before installation, it is necessary to level the surface on which the material is planned to be laid. It is better to lay additional drainage on the soil. Crushed stone can be used as drainage. The installation itself is quite simple and is carried out using a lock. This is how the pieces of the tile are connected to each other.

Plastic modules are not very expensive and easy to install

The lawn grill does not require any special preparatory work

Alleys made of wood

This type of path for the garden can hardly be called practical, however, additional impregnation, as well as processing, can increase their resistance to the negative effects of mold and moisture.

To maximize the performance of the coating, it is advisable to use it exclusively on dry heights.

Oak belongs to the most suitable tree species for organizing alleys, the rest of the array also has positive characteristics.

Inexpensive in the price category options are wood cuts, as well as bars, and a more expensive option is a terrace board.

Among the advantages of wood alleys are originality and affordability. Among the disadvantages are impracticality, as well as instability to mechanical influences.

Paving slabs

Paving slabs will serve for many years, it is enough to install it correctly. Choosing a tile will not be difficult, there are many types of coating on the construction market, ranging from color to size and pattern applied to the surface. The material can be easily put on your own, without the help of professionals. To save money, it makes sense to use the cheapest and simplest methods of laying paving slabs. For work, you will need tools that every owner will surely find: a bayonet and shovel, a peg, a level, a rubber hammer, a rake, a device for leveling the soil, a brush with a hard bristle.

To lay the tiles yourself, you will need a standard set of tools

In order for the tile to serve for a long time, you need to lay it correctly

Concrete walkways

Garden paths made of concrete are suitable for both lovers of rigor and dreamers: when working with cement mixtures, you can show your creativity. In addition, the strength of the concrete path cannot be denied. And yet the gray color of this material is able to catch up with melancholy. But there is a way out: the plates can be painted with paints!

1. Concrete slabs

Perhaps, to someone, a path made of concrete slabs will seem too gray or austere. To avoid the "official" effect, make a pretty red brick border or gravel or pebble border for such a path. The laying principle is the same as in the above described track options.

2. Cement

This is where you can have plenty of fantasy! Using ingenuity, as well as using various forms-stencils for cement, you can easily create an original garden path at your summer cottage. For information on how to do this correctly, read our material on the topic:

DIY cement paved garden path
Detailed master class with photos.

How to arrange paths in the country

If you plan to make the path in the country house the main object of the landscape, then it is better to make it solid, highlighting the paths among the vegetation

In this case, the attention of the guests will be drawn to them.

And if the tracks are a secondary part of the decor of the site, then it is better to make them fractional, without visually highlighting.

Remember that the main task of the summer cottages is to connect the connection of the house with secondary buildings: a barbecue area, a gazebo, a playground, a summer kitchen, a swimming pool or a bathhouse.

In this regard, it is worth laying them as efficiently as possible, so that it would be convenient to walk and not get the maze effect.

Acceptable track width of one and a half meters, but the value may vary depending on the size of the site.

Site design development

Landscaping of the site should begin with work on the project

At the design stage, it is very important to take into account even the smallest details.

For convenience, it is necessary to draw up a plan of the entire territory and mark on it both existing and planned buildings, structures, green spaces, garden paths, fencing, lighting elements and site decor.

When planning, it is important to take into account the size and topography of the land plot, climate features, location of communications, individual wishes of family members and the functional purpose of the plot near the house.

The first step is to decide on the style of landscape design. There are a lot of style solutions, but of them two main directions can be clearly distinguished.

The first of these is the maximum approximation to natural design. Man-made decorative details look organically integrated into the natural landscape.

One gets the impression that perennial flowers themselves have grown in a good place, and Mother Nature has worked over a small pond.

The second option assumes strict symmetry and openly demonstrates the owner's concern for the appearance of the site. In this case, the lawn must always be perfectly trimmed, all design elements are located in strict accordance with the project. The paths should be perfectly even, and the flowers in the flower beds should be planted in a clear pattern, depending on the time of their flowering.

Rationally arrange the entire site and buildings on it in the same style

This condition is especially important for land holdings of a small area. If the suburban area is large, it is permissible to divide it into different zones.

Ideas for decorating a fence and walls

Whatever one may say, but there is always a fence. And he is not always the decoration of the garden. More often than not, everything is quite the opposite: this is the owner's headache: how to disguise it or give it a more acceptable look. Indeed, there are quite a few solutions, and for different tastes.

If you can draw, and the fence is at least relatively even, paint it with some scenes. It is clear that choosing a suitable plot is not easy, but you can rely on the general style of site design.

The boring fence and the design style of the site are easy to guess

You can use the fence as a time for a vertical flower bed or vegetable garden. It's nice and useful. This idea will especially please the owners of small plots. Here are just a fence made of profiled sheet so you can use it only if the summer in your area is cool. In all other cases, plants burn on it.

The fence can be turned into a vertical bed

About the same idea will come in handy for decorating the wall of a house. Only here flowers are planted more often, and mostly ampelous, but nothing can prevent you from planting in such baskets or boxes, say, aromatic herbs or just beautiful flowers in the lower tier, and at the top let there be hanging lashes of ampelous.

Wall design option - metal baskets lined with jute fiber, inside - soil

Very often, uncomplicated decorations or some unusual elements distract attention from the not very attractive surface that the fence is. It can be homemade flowers made of colored plastic or a whole cascade of different boxes in which you can either plant flowers or put them in pots

Uncomplicated decorations, but they fulfill their task - they distract attention from the unsightly surface

Site survey

Before starting to create a landscape project, it is important to survey the site and identify such important points:

the presence of reservoirs and the level of occurrence of groundwater. This will make it possible to highlight those areas where it is possible to equip a water structure or organize drainage;
soil research. It can be sandy, medium loamy, heavy clay and light fertile.

It is important to determine the type of soil and choose the ideal place for setting up flower beds and planting shrubs and trees;
relief features. The presence of a hill or finding large boulders will help you choose a place for erecting an alpine slide and planting shrubs that prefer to grow on a hill;
placement of shadow zones

Their identification will help to correctly position the recreation area and plant the plants;
the shape of the plot.She will determine the location of buildings, the shape of paths and flower beds.

Views

The garden path consists of:

• the top layer is the roadbed;
• the base is a bedding sand layer or a buffer gravel and crushed stone cushion.

The type of foundation, as a rule, depends on the purpose of the road. For ordinary garden paths, sand is used as bedding material. Entrance roads, along which cars move, are built on a concrete base, reinforced with reinforcement. The main pedestrian paths are made on a sand and gravel layer.

The upper roadbed can be made from a variety of materials - hard and soft.

Soft

Varieties of soft pavement:

1. Bulk. The flooring is made of bulk materials: sand, gravel, gravel, sawdust. They are scattered on the ground, freed from the upper, grassy layer. The coating can be homogeneous or combined. For the arrangement, you need a minimum of time and knowledge. It has a number of disadvantages: it is short-lived, needs to be arranged with curbs, it is inconvenient to walk on it in heels.
2. Herbal. Made from grass that does not trample. The turf is looked after like a regular lawn. It is pleasant to walk on it barefoot.
3. Gravel. The road surface is made of gravel. It is cheap and readily available material. Such a flooring has drawbacks: when walking, noise is emitted, it is difficult to clean up from debris and fallen leaves, periodically you need to add it.

From paving slabs

Paving slabs are hard surfaces. It can be ceramic or concrete, cast or pressed. The fortress is not inferior to natural stone. Possesses high frost resistance, low moisture absorption. It can last for about 50 years.

Layout

The next step will be the direct development of project documentation based on pre-collected technical information:

• Chemical composition of soils;
• The degree of illumination of the site, the direction of the winds;
• Ground water level;
• The degree of the slope, it depends on where the bulk of the moisture will accumulate;
• Features of already existing buildings, stylistics should be the same for all architectural forms;
• The need to develop special areas: playground, parking, etc .;
• What species diversity of plants is it desirable to plant.

The end result of efforts is a plan with a detailed diagram of structures, communications, paths, green spaces printed on it.