Stone Pathway Leads to Savings

Always wanted to stone pathway in your landscape but never could fit it in your budget? This reader shares her tips to do it for only $500!

Meandering slate walkways are beautiful—but they can also be costly. Big ways to save are on delivery and installation, explains Barbara Criddle of Seattle, Washington.

"A good way to keep the price down is to pick out the pieces of stone you want, load them into your vehicle and tote them home yourself," Barbara advises. "We actually made several trips with our pickup truck.

"Laying the stone yourself, rather than paying to have it installed, is also economical. We paid about $500 for the slate and saved a bundle by handling the labor ourselves."

Looking for more ways to trim costs and time from big projects like this one? Here are some great ideas from Barbara:

• Laying out pathways is easy...just create an outline with a garden hose.
• If lawn is going to abut the path, be sure to test the curves with your lawn mower so the turns are not too tight. Cut the curve with your mower...it will provide an ideal guide for shaping your path.

• We shaped the winding 3-foot-wide path with forms made from 8-foot lengths of 1/8-inch-thick hardboard. Fill the forms with coarse landscape sand and level, then top with finer landscape sand and level before laying the slate.

• Between our slate stones, we plant 'Elfin' thyme (commonly called creeping thyme), woolly thyme and star creeper. All three are good plants to handle the foot traffic.

• If you want to add a large feature like this to your yard, search magazines, books and on the Internet for how-to instructions.