Fragrant journey

Designers know a great path includes an intriguing destination. Here, a yellow-glazed container catches the eye at the end of a lavender-edged gravel path.

Design: Lucinda Lester, Lucinda Lester Design, Santa Barbara (805/565-9252).

How to grow lavender

Grass circle path

Grass circles appear to float on a river of black pebbles that winds through a grove of bamboo in Malibu, CA.

Design: Mia Lehrer and Associates, Los Angeles (213/384-3844), for Lee and Carmen Ritenour.

A walk through color

Morro Bay, CA

Orange gaillardia brightens the flagstone path and marshlike plantings in this winner from Sunset's Garden Design Awards.

Ingenious hidden path

How do you access a side-yard utility area with a hedge in the way? A secret path through a hidden opening.

Designer Brenda Gousha planted two 6-foot-long overlapping hedges of Carolina laurel cherries (Prunus caroliniana) and ran a 2-foot-wide path between them.

Gousha says walls of foliage also make the perfect outdoor room. "When my husband and I sit out here, we're just a few feet from the street. But we have complete privacy." 

Full story

Design: Brenda Gousha, Sisters' Specialty Gardens, Rancho Santa Fe (760/473-0234)

Keyhole vegetable garden

A central pathway wraps around this veggie patch, making working the beds a snap.

It's positioned so the opening faces south; the larger plants in back (beans, tomatoes, and sunflowers) won't shade smaller plants.

The gardener tilled the planting areas 8 to 12 inches deep, but didn't till the keyhole (path). As long as the ground there is packed, weeds will have a hard time sprouting.

Get the planting plan

A bridge for seasonal runoff

Mix gravel with rocks of varying sizes to add interest in large areas. In the landscaping pictured here, this technique also solved a drainage problem.

The gravel path, edged on the right with 'Libelle' hydrangea and a bank of maidenhair ferns, straddles a cluster of large, flat stones that creates a bridge over a seasonal runoff channel.

Water runs through a pipe hidden beneath the channel's river rocks to a catchment pond at the far end.