Design The Creation Of Tracks On Your Site, Materials

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Design principles and material selection depending on the purpose of the track

Transport or footpaths

Roads and paths of suburban areas are usually divided into two large groups, respectively, having a utilitarian and decorative purpose. The first group includes paths for which the maximum operational load is planned - the most frequently used by pedestrians and vehicles.

(Due to the latter circumstance, such paths are called transport paths.)

Decorative paths

Decorative paths often have a style-forming meaning, they are laid to decorate the garden and walk around it. Naturally, the division into groups is very arbitrary, and both can be beautifully and soundly executed. Simply the width of the track and the materials for its canvas, as well as the power of the base, are selected based on the predicted loads. For example, for objects weighing sometimes a ton and the size of a tank, "highways" 2.5-3 meters wide are laid. The material for the canvas is selected expensive or not very, but the most practical, wear-resistant. Traditionally, these are asphalt, cold and hot paving, concrete, cement pavement, stone and paving slabs, laid on a base cushion with a thickness of 0.4-1 meter (depending on soil moisture).

Hiking trails

For walking paths winding in the depths of the garden, around flower beds, a canvas width of 0.6 to 1 meter is sufficient. The coating can be made of the same materials as for transport loads, but on a thinner substrate (0.2-0.5 m). Decorative borders, colored or embossed blotches help to get away from the monotony of the color of the utilitarian canvas. The simplest, but rather original, technique is to insert whole tiles, brick, stone or their pieces into the concrete pavement. A small consumption of materials for paths allows almost any gardener to turn to their more expensive and spectacular types: stone and marble chips, river or sea pebbles, ceramic tiles and colored paving stones, natural stone of various strengths and even wood cuts.

Combinations of different materials are acceptable and encouraged. In many ways, this simplifies the process of laying them. For example, using curly tiles framed with marble or granite chips, you don't have to worry about the accuracy of the joints. It is not necessary to invite a specialist for laying natural stone; you can scatter objects with uneven edges yourself, filling the gaps with sand or turf. The soil, by the way, will quickly grow with grass, creating the effect of noble antiquity, which is now fashionable in Europe.

The guiding arteries of the garden are simply given a single style, for which decorative blotches of transport roads are duplicated as a border or the main material for paths. In a word, roads and paths are an excellent object for the application of the owner's own creative abilities. The only factors that limit the flight of fantasy are the principles of their design.

Leisurely about the main thing

The inconvenient location of paths makes it difficult and slows down access to different parts of the garden, buildings and structures. We have to admit that most of the townspeople, acquiring a suburban "residence", carefully plan the architecture of buildings, the supply of electricity and water communications to them, and nothing more. Only few people think about what the landscape around the house will be at the stage of general design. And even then only when it comes to a reservoir, flower beds, gazebos and greenhouses. 99 out of 100 summer residents do not want to hear about the marking of paths and roads at the design stage, considering it as minor details.

In the best case, they start planning the garden after the complete completion of construction and finishing work. For complacency, they recall the experience of Henry Ford. This is a famous story about how an auto tycoon, having built a new building for his company, let the laying of paths to it go on its own. The employees of the company literally trodden paths convenient for them, the trajectories of which were subsequently paved.

The experience gained worldwide distribution and today is considered an absolutely practical approach in planning pedestrian zones for the landscape … cities. Only there, as a rule, buildings are far apart from each other, communications are significantly deepened, and the relief is ideally leveled. In private construction, such conditions are very rare, and if you remember that paths in most cases also play a decorative role, it becomes obvious that they need to be carefully planned and executed.

Funny and awful

Practice shows that the principle "at random", applied "anyhow where" and "anyhow, how" leads to comic situations, and humor can be "black". True, it is no less dangerous to be too smart. Anecdotal, but, unfortunately, the following examples are quite common when parking lots flooded by storm and melt water with adjoining roads and paths become a zone for "extreme" training. And the paths, even with a slight incline, guarantee an unforgettable experience on ice, especially if they are laid in the direction of a reservoir or a glazed greenhouse. The parking lot, the exit from which is too narrow and decorated with sculptural groups, is a ready-made set for filming a sitcom, in which all family members will play the main roles. The list can be continued with a colorful and ominous description of the breakthrough of water and gas supply pipes, the closure of the electricity network laid under the road. The reason for this - the subsidence of a thin layer of the base under significant pressure from the car - can also appear after several years of road operation.

Reliable and solid

There is a general rule - roads and paths arranged on a site for decorative and / or practical purposes must be equally safe and easy to use. It is more convenient even before the start of construction work on a sheet of tracing paper superimposed on the main building plan of the site to draw a track network.

Saves to a large extent time and labor costs, and sometimes material resources, the next approach is when construction waste and surplus are directly sent to prepared trenches. When planning the trajectories of roads, in addition to their considerable width, it is necessary to take into account several more factors, for example, lowering and raising the relief. After all, a dense and thick base of successive layers of sand and gravel is vital for a transport road. If the road is planned to be raised above the level of the site, then it should be expected that the boundaries of the base will "leave" from under the roadbed by another 0.5-1 m in both directions (depending on the elevation of the road). To prevent the base materials from being blown away by the wind and washed away by rain, they need a stabilization layer. They are often neglected, forgetting about the threat,which is a blurred base for the canvas.

The slopes of the road can be filled with cement binder, or they can hide under decorative or grassy turf. On the sides of the road and parking, you can plan a lawn or flower beds, but not buildings. Due to the significant mass of the canvas and the future loads on it, transport paths are laid no closer than two meters from the contour of the dumping of the foundation of the buildings and the root halo of trees.

Original and stylish

Decorative paths have their own specifics. Their materials and shape must be combined with botanical compositions, texture and pattern of materials for fences, flower beds, gazebos, awnings and, first of all, with the architecture and material of a residential building. Only then will the image of the garden have compositional completeness and style. This visual effect has a beneficial effect on the human psyche, being perceived subconsciously too. Therefore, it is so important not to disturb with strokes, but to emphasize the garden composition. Naturally, in creating intricate landscape paintings on large areas around palaces, one cannot do without the help of specialists. Owners of six acres can be advised to limit themselves to a few style-forming elements of the most common garden design options.

For example, the classic style implies geometrically straight lines and corners of the tracks, as well as the presence of symmetry in the arrangement of the individual components of their ornament. Tiles and clinker, but on paths with gentle curves, will create the outline of a rural garden. Paved with minimal gaps, covered with contrasting sand or crumbled bricks, a neat path with a floral border will enhance the Dutch style. Ornate lines of paths, whimsical reminiscent of a natural landscape, emphasize the boldness of the garden in the so-called free style. Narrow paths, deliberately hidden in the shade of greenery, will enhance the romance of the garden image. Sand, pebbles and chips of natural boulders in the cover of paths are necessary for Japanese gardens.

Exquisite and practical

Sometimes the ground level in the swampy part of the site is raised by artificial bedding of alumina, sand and gravel. The additional costs of purchasing fertile black soil on a garden scale are often overwhelming. A good solution in this case may be the creation of a paved garden, in which most of the space is mosaically laid out with tiles, stones or bricks, and the plants are planted in high flower beds or in containers on the podiums. Thus, the road surface goes beyond the narrow boundaries of the tracks. If the fence is made in the form of a stone wall, it will give the garden the charm of the Spanish castle style. You can go further and create a semblance of a French or Italian parterre garden of flower beds or a labyrinth garden of the 16th century. For this, the space between the bizarre flower beds is bordered by wide ribbons of sheared dense bushes. Together, they should create an intricate ornament clearly visible from the windows of the upper floor. And the paths between them for historical accuracy should be made of colored sand or gravel.

Summing up, I would like to remind gardeners that roads and paths laid in a garden of any style, regardless of their type and purpose, should form a single, ideally closed network, necessarily covering the perimeter of the site. It will be convenient to use such paths, and "bear corners" will disappear from the garden by themselves.

Maria Novikova, designer