Several years ago I wrote an article on walkways, the styles and materials we use determined by our homes, our surroundings, and the purposes they serve, concrete pavers for a driveway, a trail of Cyprus mulch through a woodland, flagstones leading to the house. I intentionally omitted the simplest, for there was insufficient space left to properly advocate for its use: paths which are paved with grass.
We think of grass as that which constitutes the lawn, or the weeds we need to eradicate from our gardens. It’s a matter of perspective. When employed as paths, grass only requires the installation of the plantings that line them. They can be narrow and intimate, as those which twist through gardens, wide and grand, as the lane between the trees of a formal allee, or as simple as a mown strip of grass slicing through a field. Although we have a variety of walkways, paths of pebbles ambling through gardens, shredded bark curving in the woodland, stepping stones meandering through the herbs, grass is the current uniting all of our gardens, swirling around and through them.
Gardens guide us along the grass paths. Their curves impose a slower pace, recurring drifts of flowers provide the rhythm that draws us, shrubs screen destinations, luring us with a promised surprise, benches are invitations, and the grass itself supplies a forgiving surface for garden strolls. The breadth of the path also creates an impression. Wide swaths of grass between gardens give the illusion of a spacious lawn to a greater extent than a limitless expanse of lawn would, while the narrow green ribbons that run through flowers, so slender as to require single file navigation, create a greater intimacy with the flowers and their winged visitors. A favorite childhood memory is of the mowed path in the meadow. Towards summer’s end the grass would get taller than we were, threaded with Queen Anne’s Lace and Black-eyed Susans, and we would run through and feel one with the butterflies and the dragonflies.
Shrubs as well as gardens suggest paths when they are planted in such a way as to form natural walls and invite passage between them. In our yard, parallel rows of viburnum create a perfumed path to the gazebo and a blueberry corridor leads from the shade of a woodland to the sunlit lawn. Grass paths beneath arbors beckon visitors through and beyond them where they funnel through and flow into the surf of the lawn.
Grass walkways lend themselves to elegant settings. In grand English gardens, grass paths relax the symmetrical geometry of formal borders. Brick walls are often flanked with flowers, which are in turn lined with grass paths, the formality lessening with each tier as the garden approaches the visitors. Sometimes the flowers are allowed to spill into the path, ensuring proximity with visitors, and sometimes the gardens are edged with bricks, separating the flowers from the path and articulating the view. Renowned for its grass paths, Highgrove transforms them into royal walkways. This is accomplished with streams of flowers, in varying colors and textures, paralleling the path, swaths of allium’s purple globes, ripples of lilies, waves of salvia. The grass path is like the shore amidst rivers of flowers.
On the opposite spectrum, grass paths are the most informal where lane and plantings meld. Where lady’s mantle and catmint are encouraged to sprawl into the lawn, and daisies to self-sow, or where the path itself is allowed to cultivate wildflowers, such as clovers and violets. Those that run through orchards, where fruit trees and berrying bushes and wildflowers co-exist to the delight of visitors and bees. The paths at Trailwood, particularly the one that cuts through “Firefly Meadow”, comprised of a variety of grasses in assorted textures, where tall grass fronds lean across the path and small tufts of grass ebb into it, blurring the edges that make the division between the path and the meadow less pronounced.
The quality of the lawn is also a factor in determining formality. Manicured paths are labor intensive. Anyone who has ever tried to keep a weedless lawn understands that grass is the friendliest of surfaces, constantly inviting flowers into its realm. In paths that run through orchards or other natural gardens, the grass is intentionally shaggier for the benefit of the bees. And though grass is unfussy, it will simply not grow where it doesn’t want to. The grass path that runs along the stonewall lined with oak and pine trees that cause acidic soil is comprised mostly of moss. What a charming comfort it is to walk barefoot across the soft, velvety cushions.
Other benefits: cost. Grass paths are virtually free. They’re also simple to maintain, only requiring mowing. Edging keeps the distinction between the garden and the grass visible and tidy, a task which is required every few years as the lawn starts to encroach on the flowers. Weeding and fertilizing is only necessary in highly manicured paths. Grass paths are drought tolerant. There’s no reason to water lawns in New England. Though the grass might get parched in August, it will only scorch if you cut it weekly. If you leave the lawn alone, it will survive and reward you with a fresh emerald carpet in the fall.
Recent research reports on the benefits of walking barefoot in the grass, with acupuncture points balancing positive and negative ions which result in lessened aches, pains and stress, strengthened joints, muscles and tendons, and improved sleep, circulation and posture. But those of us who grew up running around barefoot and still kick our shoes off whenever we can already knew all of that. If I ever live in a place without the ample grass we have in New England, I will require at least a small patch for my feet. So closely are the two linked together, and with a lifetime.