Garden Walkway

Last year we have decided to plant most of our flowers and some vegetables in containers. To do that one needs some paved area; after all it is not a good idea to place large containers directly on the lawn. Only paved area we had was west facing 8’ x 16’ tiled patio. Well, I was more then happy to design and build a walkway that will go around the house. I build it in several stages over two years and the pavement runs along three sides of the house. East facing front of the house, south facing deck and sunroom, then towards patio and continues north along west side of house and along 3’ x 14’ cold frame. To say that there is a lot of room for containers of all sizes is understatement. According to AutoCAD that I used to design the layout all paved areas cover 820 sq.ft. That’s a lot of grass that I don’t have to water, fertilize and cut. At the same time I designed and build one large island for trees, shrubs, ornamental grasses and flowers. That’s another 1,200 sq.ft. of lawn gone. I just love it!
Here is a short tour.

Acknowledgment:

There were lot of pavers, bricks and flagstones to lift several times each, plus a lot of crushed stone and sand to load and lay down for the base. Since bagged aggregate is very expensive I had to look for other sources. I didn’t have to look very far, just 3 km from our house, and what a lucky find it was! Kirwin – Oatman Excavating had moved to present location at south-west town limit of Tillsonburg from another location in town few years ago. We drove by few times a week on the way to Eden golf course but it never occurred to me that I could buy directly from them. One phone call solved the problem. Since they sell by cubic yard for large projects we had to do some calculating for 2 cubic feet at time; that’s all I could shovel into a recycling bin in my Toyota trunk.

My initial call was picked up by the owner but after that only contact I had with the company was incredibly friendly and efficient secretary Gail. What a pleasure it is to deal with somebody that is so friendly and always smiling. Let’s just say that I paid same price as big volume buyers and that it was just a fraction of what it would cost me retail and also the quality of sand and crushed stone is also much better. They also carry screened topsoil, asphalt/stone mix and other aggregates.

Thanks goes to Gail and Kirwin-Oatman without whom I would be way over budget on this project.

Gail, hard at work.

One of the products they sell is screened top soil. Contracted screening machine at work.