I have an addiction to bargain hunting. If I am walking down an aisle in the store and I see something with a “clearance” tag on it, I am drawn to it like a zombie is to a live human. Needless to say, when I find something I want and it’s for FREE, it’s like I just won the lotto!
I also have an addiction to gardening. Some aspects of gardening can be very expensive, like buying that perfect rare tree that you’ve been eying for over a year. But other aspects can be very affordable, like buying seeds to add a lot of color for very little cost. Even better though is how much you can do in the garden that costs absolutely nothing! Adding a brick path is one of those things.
Our back yard was one big, open, blank slate when we moved in three years ago. I have slowly been breaking it up into sections and zones with themed plantings and specific purposes. For example, the back right quarter of the yard is our food forest. This will have all the raised beds, the raspberry patch, and a small orchard. Just in front of that, we recently added a fire pit on a patio with built-in benches. To give access to the planned “veggie patch/orchard” I decided to add a brick path.
I am a big fan of stonework in a garden. I love how it can create magical little spaces or “outdoor rooms” for one to just sit and enjoy nature. I love that paths clearly tell people (and little kids ; ) where it’s ok to walk. And I love that a path creates an intentional journey for whoever is walking it.
Once I knew I was adding a brick path, the next step was to gather some bricks. For this I searched Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace and was able to find plenty for free. Often they are from a house that is removing their fireplace or renovating and removing bricks from the exterior. When you get bricks like this, it means you will have to chip away at a bunch of mortar before you can use most of the bricks. If you’re lucky, sometimes you can get bricks that people are removing from a garden path so they are already nice and clean! I was able to find a little of both. While chipping away at the mortar on some of the bricks, I like to remind myself that the more work that goes into creating something, the more you are going to appreciate it because you know what it took to make it happen.
Once I had a sufficient pile of bricks at my disposal, I mapped out where the path was going to be. This was just going to be a small path and probably not one that a bunch of people were going to use, so I didn’t actually care to make it perfect. Because of that, I didn’t dig everything out and make it perfectly level. I raked it a bit but then just used bags of sand to lay the bricks down on. It took a little reworking in order to get the bricks staggered just right, but the beauty with bricks is that you can do them however you want. You can make them incredibly precise or let them be imperfect to go for the “quaint, whimsical” look.
Here are some photos of how I built our path. I am very pleased with how it turned a vague, wild space into something with structure and clear purpose. Brick paths also help make a new yard look more established. I have a lot of plans in my head of where I will be adding more brickwork. Aside from dressing the yard up a bit, it also makes it MUCH easier to maintain because it limits where the pesky weeds can grow. I will be sure to add more brickwork updates as I go along. I hope you enjoy!
Suburban Farmer Mom 