Elsewhere Online: Five views of one path: Garden Bloggers’ Design Challenge

This article gives a wonderful view of how one environment can look so different throughout the course of the year. It makes me homesick to see such dramatic seasonal changes. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't miss the snow necessarily, but the dramatic progression from season to season is amazing to witness.

Five views of one path: Garden Bloggers’ Design Challenge

Perhaps it is a bit extreme to say “Paths make the garden,” but ever since I was a child paths have been an emotionally significant element to my enjoyment of a garden. I didn’t realize this until we moved to the rural 15 acres where we now live, when I struggled with how to turn acreage into a garden.

That a path exists gives a sense of safety. You know you won’t get lost or swallowed up as long as you can see the path. The fact that you can’t see where a path leads is what lends it the air of mystery, what gives you a little tingle of excitement.

Once I realized that paths were called for, the problem became one of creating and maintaining them. (I still feel abysmally ignorant about this subject, so if anyone knows of a book on trail maintenance, please let me know.)

(Continues on site)

(Via Cold Climate Gardening.)