Planting Ideas for Pathways

Grass-Covered Pathways

Join individual garden spaces and define your garden beds with pathways planted in grass. Select a grass variety, such as red fescue, that holds up to foot traffic and welcomes bare feet. Make the pathway wide enough to accommodate a lawnmower, as the lawn-like strip will require routine maintenance. Avoid planting grasses with rapidly spreading rhizomes that may become invasive intruders into flower and vegetable beds.

Fill an entire pathway with sturdy ground cover plants. This approach typically works best for paths that get walked on several times a day. Some of the hardier ground covers, like New Zealand Brass Buttons, with its tiny fern-like leaves and button-type flowers, hold up even to the occasional traffic of a wheelbarrow or garden cart. Choose ground covers that are evergreen or semi-evergreen in your climate for long-season coverage. Ensure that the plants are naturally low-growing so that you do not need to mow to keep the pathway tidy.

Accent the spaces around brick walkways and between flagstones with plants that have a pleasant scent. Herbs like creeping oregano and woolly thyme release refreshing, spicy odors when they're crushed underfoot. The zesty scent of Corsican mint, a non-aggressive variety of low-growing mint with tiny leaves, adds an invigorating air to a stroll through the garden. Set lilies and other sweet-smelling perennials beside a pathway, where there fragrances can be appreciated as you pass by.

Soften the visual impact of concrete, gravel and stone pathways with an edging of flowers, shrubs and small trees. To shade an area of the path, arrange a dogwood tree and Japanese maple, and upright, compact evergreens near the border. In sunnier areas, edge the pathway with a combination of perennial plants that bloom during different seasons for ongoing color accents. For a formal landscape setting, place a border along the pathway using boxwood bushes or evergreen shrubs trimmed with geometric precision.