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.

Ground-Cover-Planted Pathways

• 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.

Fragrant Pathways

• 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.

Edging and Borders

• 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.